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BL  98  .F67  1919 
Forster,  Arthur  Haire,  1879 
Four  modern  religious 
movement sm 


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FOUR  MODERN  RELIGIOUS 
MOVEMENTS  ' 

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BY  y  ^^Of?? 

ARTHUR  HAIRE  FORSTER 


ARTIerveRlTATI 


BOSTON 

RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 


'iV 


■  4  1919 


Copyright,  1919,  by  Arthur  Hairv  Forster 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Reprinted  by  the  kind  permission  of 

T?it  Teacher*'  Assistant,  Toronto 

and  Church  Lift 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.S.A. 


TO 

C.  E. 


CONTENTS 
I 

PAGE 

Spiritualism .       9 

II 

Christian  Science 25 

ni 

Theosophy 39 

IV 

The  Mormons  or  Latter  Day  Saints      .     .     .58 

V 

Christ  the  Word 72 

VI 
The  Value  of  Death 77 

VII 
The  Religious  Opinions  of  Dean  Swift      .     .     86 


FOUR  MODERN  RELIGIOUS 
MOVEMENTS 


FOUR  MODERN  RELIGIOUS 
MOVEMENTS 


SPIRITUALISM 

A  SPIRITUALIST  ought  to  mean  a  person 
who  believes  in  a  spiritual  order  or  en- 
vironment to  which  man  should  adapt  himself  if 
he  wishes  to  live  the  most  real  life.  A  material- 
ist, on  the  other  hand,  is  one  who  believes  that  it 
is  only  necessary  for  man  to  adapt  himself  to  this 
present  world  since  there  is  nothing  beyond  it. 
The  materialist  "  sets  his  mind  on  the  things  that 
are  upon  the  earth  "  because  he  has  abandoned 
belief  in  a  spiritual  order.  Every  Christian  is  a 
spiritualist  in  the  true  sense  of  the  term,  but  the 
word  is  now  used  chiefly  of  one  who  believes  that 
the  dead  can  and  do  communicate  through  me- 
diums with  the  living.  The  first  page  of  the 
Spiritualist's  Hymn  Book  declares  that  "  Spirit- 

9 


lO       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

uallsm  is  the  science  of  life;  of  the  manifestation 
of  the  spirit  —  the  intercommunion  of  the  people 
of  earth  and  those  on  the  other  side."  On  the 
same  page  one  of  their  principles  is  given  as  "  the 
proven  facts  of  communion  between  departed 
human  spirits  and  mortals." 

It  would  be  better  if  the  word  spiritism  were 
used  for  this  theory;  this  word  is,  in  fact,  so  used 
by  the  French.  Spiritualism  or  spiritism  may  be 
said  to  be  the  exaggeration  of  the  Christian  doc- 
trines of  immortality  and  the  communion  of  saints, 
but  the  exaggeration  of  a  doctrine  is  often  its 
corruption  as  well;  the  history  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  contains  many  examples  of  that.  How- 
ever, as  most  modern  spiritualists  have  had  some 
Christian  training,  though  usually  it  Is  a  stupid 
and  Inadequate  training,  the  corruptions  are  not 
yet  very  evident. 

Spiritualism,  like  most  other  modern  religious 
movements,  is  due  to  the  Churches  timidity,  world- 
llness  and  want  of  intelligent  teaching  and  propa- 
ganda. Spiritualists  are  uninstructed  people  look- 
ing for  what  the  Church  has  left  out.  A  spiritual- 
ist service  consists  In  hymns,  extempore  prayer, 


spiritualism 


II 


a  trance  address  and  "  messages "  from  the 
dead  given  by  a  medium  to  some  of  those  present. 
Seven  or  eight  of  the  hymns  in  their  book  are  well 
known  to  all  Christians.  "  Nearer,  My  God,  to 
Thee,"  for  example,  is  one  of  them.  The  trance 
address  is  dehvered  by  someone  who  professes  to 
be  inspired  by  a  departed  spirit.  I  have  listened 
to  one  given  by  a  pleasant  and  prosperous-looking 
old  man  with  a  white  vest,  whose  inspirer,  we  were 
informed,  was  an  Egyptian,  dead  many  thousand 
years.  The  subject  was  the  parable  of  the  Rich 
Man  and  Lazarus,  and  soon  became  an  appeal  to 
class  jealousy.  Spiritualism  and  a  certain  crude 
Socialism  are  often  found  in  close  aUiance.  The 
Rich  Man  of  the  parable,  we  were  told,  was  in 
hell  because  he  was  rich.  It  did  not  seem  to  occur 
to  the  speaker  or  his  inspirer  that  Abraham,  who 
in  the  same  parable  is  in  Paradise,  was  also  a  rich 
man.  We  were  also  told  that  man  is  not  fallen; 
yet  it  was  not  explained  how,  in  that  case,  priests 
and  rich  men  could  be  such  villains  as  he  repre- 
sented them  to  be.  The  speaker  also  asserted 
that  Christianity  is  merely  Indian  Buddhism  in  a 
new  dress.     This   is  a   common  theory   among 


12       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

many  who  know  little  about  Buddhism  and  less 
about  Christianity.  Altogether  one  felt  that  the 
Egyptian  might  spend  a  few  more  centuries  in 
the  spirit  world  in  improving  his  logic  before  he 
inspires  anyone  else. 

The  chief  attraction  at  a  spiritualist  service  is 
the  "  messages  "  from  the  dead  given  by  the  me- 
dium. At  one,  for  instance,  the  medium  alleged 
that  she  saw  spirit  figures  hovering  over  certain 
persons  and  trying  to  give  them  advice.  The  ad- 
vice was  usually  sensible  enough  —  not  to  worry, 
not  to  wear  black,  to  be  careful  of  someone's 
health. 

The  "  messages,"  however,  do  not  always  pro- 
duce happy  results.  Raupert,  in  "  The  Dangers 
of  Spiritualism,"  tells  of  a  widow  living  near  Paris 
who  tied  her  two  little  children  together  and 
drowned  them  in  a  dirty  pond  in  order  to  send 
them  after  another  child  which  had  died.  This 
little  child  had  spoken  to  her,  she  thought,  at  a 
seance  and  had  told  her  that  she  was  dull  in  the 
other  world.  The  mother  was  probably  afraid 
that  her  dead  child  might  be  lonely;  the  medium 
had  read  what  was  in  her  mind  and  given  it  as  a 


spiritualism  1 3 


message  from  the  other  world.  Most  of  the 
"  messages  "  may  be  explained  in  that  way,  when 
they  are  not  mere  guesses  by  the  medium,  for  peo- 
ple go  to  spiritualist  services  to  hear  and  see 
*'  signs  and  wonders;  "  they  go  as  sensation  hunt- 
ers; if  there  are  none  to  be  had,  then  they  must 
be  invented  for  them.  No  prodigy,  no  pay,  is  the 
natural  attitude,  and  this,  of  course,  puts  a  pre- 
mium on  fraud.  Modern  spiritualism  is  generally 
dated  from  1847,  when  strange  rappings  were 
heard  in  the  house  of  a  man  called  Fox,  living  in 
the  Township  of  Arcadia,  New  York  State.  The 
great  excitement  which  these  rappings  caused  was 
considerably  cooled  when  one  of  Fox's  daughters 
confessed  that  she  made  them  by  cracking  her 
knee  and  toe  joints.  It  was  an  unfortunate  begin- 
ning for  a  new  religion. 

Some  years  later  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania appointed  a  commission,  the  Seybert  Com- 
mission, to  examine  '*  Spiritualism."  This  exam- 
•nation,  it  must  be  said,  was  not  a  complete  one, 
but  the  secretary  reported,  after  several  experi- 
ments with  mediums :  "I  have  been  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  spiritualism,  as  far  at  least  as  it  has 


14       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

shown  itself  before  me,  presents  the  melancholy 
spectacle  of  gross  fraud  perpetrated  upon  an  un- 
critical portion  of  the  community."  Spiritualism 
is  not  all  fraud,  but  it  flourishes  because  so  many 
are  so  easily  deceived  and  because  so  few  know 
that  its  marvels  can  now  be  explained  without  sup- 
posing that  the  dead  are  communicating  messages. 
In  England  many  spiritualist  societies  were 
formed  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century  and 
"  messages  "  were  received  from  famous  person- 
ages. For  example,  in  1854  Shakespeare  trans- 
mitted a  fragment  of  a  play  on  "  The  Death  of 
Brennus."  Here  is  one  complete  scene:  "The 
Seige  of  Crosium  —  Brennus:  'On,  soldiers, 
on!'  (After  an  obstinate  siege  of  six  months, 
Crosium  is  taken  with  an  immense  slaughter.) 
Scene  closes."  Shakespeare  can  scarcely  be  said 
to  have  improved  as  a  writer  of  plays  since  his 
death.  A  Newcastle  (England)  spiritualist  circle 
had  twenty  kings  and  seven  queens  appearing  at 
one  sitting.  Later  on  King  David  promised  the 
same  circle  elementary  lessons  in  Hebrew,  and 
Noah  gave  interesting  and  curious  details  about 
the  earth  before  the  flood. 


spiritualism  1 5 


These  Incidents  explain  why  Professor  William 
James  once  said  that  what  mankind  at  large  most 
lacks  is  criticism  and  caution,  not  faith.  But  there 
are  phenomena  In  "  spiritualism  "  which  cannot  be 
explained  by  the  fraud  of  mediums  and  the  cre- 
dulity of  those  who  wait  on  them.  In  1882  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research  was  founded  to  in- 
vestigate these  mysterious  phenomena.  Bishop 
Boyd-Carpenter  of  RIpon  and  Mr.  Balfour  have 
been  presidents  of  this  society,  as  well  as  many 
distinguished  scientists  and  scholars.  Some  mem- 
bers have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  dead  do, 
under  certain  conditions,  communicate  with  the  liv- 
ing; others  say  the  evidence  is  Insufficient.  In  any 
case,  the  work  of  this  society  has  shown  that  far 
more  proof  of  "  messages  "  from  the  dead  is  re- 
quired than  that  offered  at  an  ordinary  spiritualist 
service. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  the  by-product  from 
the  manufacture  of  some  article  becomes  more  Im- 
portant than  the  article  Itself,  and  this  is  true  of 
"  spiritualism."  Even  if  "  messages  "  from  the 
dead  are  not  proved,  the  investigation  of  alleged 
messages  has  shown  the  marvels  of  the  human 


1 6       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

mind,  especially  of  that  part  of  it  which  is  called 
the  subliminal  self.  Subliminal  means  below  the 
threshold.  This  subliminal  self  or  under-mind 
was  "  discovered  "  by  F.  W.  Myers,  the  author  of 
a  well-known  poem  on  St.  Paul.  It  is  that  tract  of 
the  mind  which  operates  in  dreams,  and  indeed 
the  careful  study  of  dreams  has  thrown  much 
light  on  many  of  the  alleged  facts  of  spiritualism. 
An  incident  will  show  what  this  under-mind  can 
do  —  or  rather  perceive.  It  is  condensed  from 
a  story  guaranteed  by  Miss  Dougall  in  the  recent 
volume  of  essays  called  "  Immortality,"  by  Canon 
Streeter  and  others. 

"  A  Mrs.  B.,  on  her  way  to  visit  a  medium  or 
clairvoyant,  called  on  a  Miss  A.,  who  during  the 
visit  was  thinking  over  certain  striking  events, 
events  which,  however,  she  never  mentioned  to 
Mrs.  B.  Mrs.  B.  soon  returned  and  told  Miss 
A.  that  the  clairvoyant  had  been  very  uninterest- 
ing, having  merely  described  a  series  of  apparently 
meaningless  visions.  Miss  A.  was  amazed  to  find 
that  these  visions  were  her  own  thoughts  while 
Mrs.  B.  was  with  her  on  her  first  visit.  Stranger 
still,  the  visions  were  introduced  to  the  clairvoy- 


spiritualism  17 


ant's  consciousness  by  a  Chinaman  in  fine  apparel. 
Now  that  morning  Miss  A.  had  been  struck  by  the 
sight  of  two  Chinamen  coming  down  the  steps  of 
the  Chinese  Embassy  in  London;  their  Oriental 
dress  had  made  an  impression  on  her  mind." 

This  incident  seems  to  imply  that  Mrs.  B.'s  "  un- 
der-mind  "  took,  as  it  were,  a  photograph  of  the 
thoughts  in  Miss  A.'s  mind,  and  this  mind-photo- 
graph was  then  developed  by  the  medium  in  the 
form  of  visions.  A  medium,  in  fact,  gives  a  dra- 
matic reproduction  of  what  Is  in  her  client's  mind, 
just  as  a  dream  is  a  dramatic  reproduction  of  what 
has  been  in  one's  own  mind  during  the  day.  Thus 
we  see  how  difficult  it  would  be  to  prove  that  it  Is  a 
discarnate  or  disembodied  spirit  who  is  giving  the 
messages.  The  "  revelations  "  of  mediums  and 
clairvoyants  may  nearly  always  be  explained  as 
readings  from  this  life  and  no  other.  They  might 
all  come  from  the  medium's  "  photographing,"  so 
to  speak,  other  minds,  and  producing  the  results  In 
a  trance-state,  or  else  they  might  come  from  the 
medium's  own  hidden  memory.  For  this  under- 
mlnd,  it  seems,  has  an  almost  infallible  memory. 
There  is,  for  example,  a  case  of  an  old  lady  who 


1 8       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

spoke  Hindustani  in  her  delirium,  though  she  had 
left  India  at  the  age  of  four  and  had  never  learned 
the  language.  In  another  case,  the  alleged  spirit 
turned  out  to  be  a  character  in  a  novel  which  had 
once  been  read  to  the  medium,  and  when  the  me- 
dium makes  a  mistake,  it  has  often  been  found  that 
the  mistake  already  exists  In  the  client's  own  mind. 
So,  as  Mr.  Hereward  Carrington,  an  investigator 
of  spiritualist  phenomena,  says:  '*  Spirit  mes- 
sages may  be  the  result  of  the  activity  of  the  sec- 
ondary consciousness  of  the  medium  active  at  the 
time  and  passing  itself  off  as  a  spirit  —  the  super- 
normal knowledge  displayed  being  gained  by 
means  of  telepathy,  clairvoyance  and  such  super- 
normal processes  and  woven  together  by  the  me- 
dium's secondary  consciousness  to  personate  a 
spirit."  Telepathy,  mentioned  by  Mr.  Carring- 
ton in  this  quotation,  is  the  name  for  the  fact  that 
one  mind  can  receive  impressions  from  another 
mind  at  a  distance  without  using  the  ordinary  chan- 
nels, such  as  speech;  It  is  a  kind  of  mental  wireless 
telegraphy,  and  is  regarded  as  proved  by  most  in- 
vestigators. Nearly  everyone  has  had  some  ex- 
perience of  it;  we  can  often  know  when  others 


spiritualism  19 


are  writing  to  us  or  when  something  has  happened 
to  one  In  whom  we  are  Interested.  It  has  even 
been  asserted  that  children  may  be  Influenced  for 
good  by  whispering  to  them  while  they  are  asleep. 
In  this  way  suggestions  may  be  given  to  their  sub- 
conscious minds  which  will  afterwards  bear  fruit 
In  better  living.  It  Is  not  always  easy  to  distin- 
guish clairvoyance  from  telepathy.  Clairvoyance 
might  be  called  *'  mental  eyesight,"  as  when  a  per- 
son can  tell  what  a  card  is  without  looking  at  It. 

Recent  experiments  In  clairvoyance  and  telep- 
athy warn  us  that  we  cannot  accept  alleged  spirit 
messages  too  readily.  It  Is  safer  to  follow  the 
advice  of  the  Greek  poet  Epicharmus,  "  Be  sober 
and  distrustful;  these  are  the  sinews  of  the  under- 
standing," or  of  St.  Paul,  "Prove  all  things." 

Spiritualism  Is  growing  In  popularity  owing  to 
the  general  spiritual  unrest  accentuated  by  the  war. 
Any  system  which  promises  to  open  communica- 
tion with  the  departed  Is  welcomed.  But,  as  has 
been  pointed  out,  the  evidence  for  the  reality  of 
these  communications  Is  extremely  doubtful. 
Much  more  care  and  criticism  is  required  than 
such  as  is  found  at  an  ordinary  spiritualist  service. 


20       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

The  sorting  of  alleged  messages  is  beyond  the 
power  of  most  of  those  who  attend  these  services. 
Their  infantile  credulity  hinders  the  discovery  of 
truth,  for  if  everything  be  believed  the  true  can 
never  be  sifted  from  the  false.  As  regards  the 
moral  effects  of  spiritualism,  it  is  difficult  to  reach 
any  conclusion  as  yet.  The  story  of  the  early 
Christian  Church  shows  that  a  firm  belief  in  im- 
mortality leads  to  a  belief  in  human  brotherhood. 
It  might,  indeed,  be  maintained  that  democracy 
stands  or  falls  with  the  belief  in  immortality.  If 
men  no  longer  believe  in  a  life  after  death  they 
will  seize  all  they  can  in  this  world  without  regard- 
ing the  rights  of  others ;  the  Germans  and  the  Bol- 
sheviki  have  shown  us  that.  To  believe  in  a  life 
after  death  is  to  lose  the  modern  reverence  for  the 
man  of  wealth,  for  as  the  Parable  of  the  Rich 
Man  and  Lazarus  reminds  us,  the  man  of  wealth 
may  be  a  beggar  in  the  other  world.  But  spirit- 
ualists have  not  the  monopoly  of  the  doctrine  of 
a  future  life;  it  is  a  fundamental  Christian  belief 
which  the  Church  has  allowed  to  fall  into  disuse, 
and  it  is  a  health-giving  belief  only  when  it  comes 


spiritualism  2 1 


with  communion  with  God  and  not  from  sensa- 
tional seances. 

Then  a  standard  is  needed  in  morality  as  in 
everything  else,  yet  in  spiritualism  no  standard  is 
apparent.  When  Jesus  is  mentioned,  it  is  often  in 
a  tone  of  patronage  and  of  something  like  pity  for 
those  who  make  Him  the  Master  of  Life.  The 
simpletons  who  run  after  the  spirits  will  probably 
soon  lose  the  Christian  spirit.  They  yield  to  the 
flattering  thought  that  they  are  broad-minded  and 
"  freed  from  the  fetters  of  orthodoxy."  They 
forget  that  orthodoxy  means  literally  right-think- 
ing, and  they  have  not  noticed  that  free  thinking 
is  often  very  loose  thinking  indeed.  Furthermore, 
the  effect  of  putting  oneself  in  a  passive  state  to 
receive  "  messages  "  cannot  be  healthy.  In  his 
book  "  Spiritualism  and  Insanity  "  Dr.  Williams 
writes:  "  There  is  the  serious  injury  to  the  men- 
tal organism  which  is  bound  to  result  from  con- 
stantly getting  into  the  habit  of  forcing  the  will  to 
become  perfectly  passive."  In  the  same  work  a 
doctor  is  quoted  as  saying  that  in  six  months  he 
had  twenty  cases  of  insanity  as  the  result  of  dab- 


22       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

bling  In  spiritualism.  Here,  of  course,  it  might  be 
objected  that  these  persons  would  have  gone  mad 
in  any  event,  that  they  *'  dabbled  in  spiritualism  " 
because  they  were  mentally  deficient;  however,  the 
fact  is  significant  either  way.  Spiritualism  is  cer- 
tainly a  danger  to  that  strengthening  of  distinct 
personalities  which  is  a  necessary  aim  of  Christian 
discipline,  and  It  is  especially  harmful  to  those 
whose  other  interests  are  too  few  and  whose  in- 
tellect Is  too  narrow.  None  the  less,  the  growth 
of  spiritualism  is  a  valuable  warning  to  the  his- 
toric church. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  nurse  who  in  her  haste  to 
throw  out  the  dirty  bath  water  threw  out  the  baby 
too,  so  the  Church,  in  throwing  out  abuses  at  the 
reformation,  may  have  thrown  out,  In  some  In- 
stances, rightful  uses.  Spiritualism  Is  perhaps  her 
punishment  for  this  unwise  eviction. 

"  The  real  cause,"  Miss  Dougall  writes,  "  of 
the  hold  which  spiritualism  has  on  many  religious 
minds  Is  the  failure  of  the  Church  to  realize  In 
practice  the  meaning  of  the  communion  of  saints. 
The  mediaeval  Church  failed  on  account  of  the 
un-Chrlstian  superstition  which  pictured  the  next 


spiritualism  23 


stage  of  existence  as  a  state  of  mere  torture  and 
punishment.  The  reaction  of  the  Protestant 
mind  against  mercenary  prayers  and  ceremonies 
to  relieve  the  misery  of  the  souls  in  purgatory  was 
healthy.  But  with  this  came  in  another  supersti- 
tion, that  it  was  wrong  to  pray  for  the  dead  or  to 
believe  in  their  fellowship  with  the  living.  In  so 
far  as  it  is  a  reaction  against  this  newer  supersti- 
tion, spiritualism  shows  a  healthy  instinct.  But 
the  methods  employed  by  spiritualists  to  bridge 
with  friendly  overtures  the  stream  of  death  ap- 
pear to  be  mistaken,  and  therefore  dangerous. 
They  are  at  best  only  a  roundabout  way  of  obtain- 
ing a  sense  of  companionship  with  those  who  have 
passed  on,  since  the  same  sense  of  companionship 
might  be  obtained  better  and  more  easily  by 
prayer.  Then,  too,  when  this  sense  of  compan- 
ionship is  attained  in  the  spiritualistic  seance  or  by 
some  private  automatic  means,  it  is  inevitably 
mixed  with  and  confused  by  communications  from 
the  inner  mind  of  the  medium  or  agent,  which  is 
always  subject  to  telepathic  intrusions  from  — 
none  can  tell  whom." 

If  this  be  so,  then  the  true  answer  to  spiritual- 


24       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

ism  Is  to  recover  within  the  Church  that  victorious 
attitude  which  marked  the  early  Christians  when 
they  faced  the  fact  of  death,  and  to  recover  too 
their  sense  of  companionship  with  their  dead 
which  is  shown  in  their  prayers.  Our  mourning 
and  our  tombstones  do  not  exhibit  this  victory  over 
death:  they  look  more  like  defeat. 

Having  ceased  to  pray  for  the  departed,  we 
have  come  to  think  that  they  are  really  dead  to  us, 
whereas  they  are,  perhaps,  nearer  than  we  know. 


II 

CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE 

IN  1862  Mrs.  Patterson,  formerly  Mrs.  Glover 
and  afterwards  Mrs.  Eddy,  went  to  consult  a 
doctor  called  Quimby  at  Portland,  Maine.  This 
incident  is  the  real  beginning  of  Christian  Science. 
Dr.  Quimby  helped  Mrs.  Patterson  by  mental  sug- 
gestion, not  by  medicine,  and  gave  her  the  idea 
which  she  afterward  developed  into  "  Christian 
Science."  He  described  his  method  as  follows: 
''  I  give  no  medicine.  I  tell  the  patient  his  trou- 
bles and  what  he  thinks  is  the  disease  and  my  ex- 
planation is  the  cure.  If  I  succeed  in  correcting 
his  errors,  I  change  the  fluids  of  the  system  and 
establish  the  truth  or  health.  The  truth  is  the 
cure.  The  greatest  evil  that  follows  taking  an 
opinion  for  a  truth  is  disease.  .  .  .  Disease  is  our 
error  and  the  work  of  the  devil."  This  method, 
he  called  "  Science  of  Health."  It  is  similar  to 
what  is  now  known  as  "  psycho-therapeutics,"  a 

25 


26       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

long  word  which  merely  means  "  mind-cure,"  or 
treatment  of  the  sick  by  influencing  the  mental  life. 
It  was  familiar  to  Plato  four  hundred  years  before 
Christ.  ''  The  well  regulated  soul,"  he  wrote, 
''  by  its  authoritative  power,  maintains  the  body  in 
perfect  health."  Dr.  Quimby  had  two  other  pa- 
tients who  borrowed  and  expanded  his  ideas. 
One  was  J.  A.  Dresser,  the  leader  of  the  ''  New 
Thought  "  movement,  the  other  W.  F.  Evans,  a 
Swedenborgian  clergyman,  who  published  a  book, 
"The  Mental  Cure,"  in  1869,  six  years  before 
Mrs.  Eddy's  more  famous  "  Science  and  Health." 
Quimby's  theory  was  briefly  "  Disease  is  in  Its 
root  a  wrong  belief,  change  that  belief  and  we  cure 
the  disease."  Mrs.  Eddy  went  further  and  said 
that  bodies  have  no  real  existence,  therefore,  of 
course,  neither  have  their  ailments.  Strangely 
enough  she  discovered  "  Christian  Science  "  In 
1866,  the  year  in  which  Dr.  Quimby  died.  The 
relation  of  mind  to  matter  and  the  nature  of  mat- 
ter are  old  problems  in  philosophy  and  physical 
science.  Mrs.  Eddy  settled  them  very  simply  by 
announcing  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  matter. 
A  true  philosophy  should  account  for  all  the  facts; 


Christian  Science  27 

Mrs.  Eddy  threw  any  inconvenient  facts  away. 
The  human  mind  may  be  compared  to  a  drunken 
man  on  a  horse  who,  in  trying  to  avoid  falling  off 
on  the  right  side,  falls  off  on  the  left.  Material- 
ism, the  theory  that  matter  is  everything,  was  pop- 
ular in  her  time ;  she  swayed  over  to  the  other  side 
and  fell  off  into  the  dogma  that  matter  is  nothing. 
That  we  suppose  there  is  a  material  world  is  the 
result  or  creation  of  w'hat  Mrs.  Eddy  calls  "  mor- 
tal mind."  She  does  not  make  it  very  clear  how 
this  "  mortal  mind,"  which  is  nothing  and  yet  has 
created  the  physical  universe,  came  to  be.  The 
search  for  an  answer  to  this  question  in  her  writ- 
ings has  been  described  as  "  taking  a  long  walk  to 
catch  a  mist."  Matter,  no  doubt,  is  not  so  gross 
as  was  once  supposed.  We  are  now  told  that  it  is 
essentially  "  units  of  electric  force."  It  is,  in  fact, 
more  easy  to  believe  in  matter  as  the  manifestation 
of  mind  than  ever  before,  yet  matter  as  a  mani- 
festation, as  a  ''  Divine  Language  "  is  very  differ- 
ent from  matter  as  non-existent.  Those  who  wish 
to  understand  Mrs.  Eddy's  philosophy  will  find 
a  fair  criticism  of  it  in  "  The  Truth  and  Error  of 
Christian  Science,"  by  Miss  Sturge.     Its  philos- 


28       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

ophy  Is  one  of  the  attractions  of  "  Christian  Sci- 
ence " —  for  those  who  have  not  had  a  training  In 
philosophy. 

The  text-book  of  "  Christian  Science  "  Is  Mrs. 
Eddy's  "  Science  and  Health  with  key  to  the  Scrip- 
tures," a  book  which  has  been  Issued  In  more  than 
four  hundred  editions.  The  cheapest  copy  adver- 
tised costs  three  dollars,  so  that  the  poor  are  shut 
out  from  the  benefits  of  reading  It,  unless  they  bor- 
row a  copy,  as  I  did.  The  Key  to  the  Scriptures  Is 
an  explanation  of  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis  and 
some  chapters  of  the  Revelation.  These  are  dif- 
ficult parts  of  the  Bible,  but  Mrs.  Eddy  says  they 
are  transparent  to  her  and  proceeds  to  Inform  us 
In  the  glossary  of  her  book  that  the  river  Glhon 
(Genesis  2:  13)  means  "  the  rights  of  woman,  ac- 
knowledged morally,  civilly  and  socially,"  while 
the  river  HIddekel  Is  "  Divine  Science  understood 
and  acknowledged."  The  Holy  Ghost  is  also 
"  Divine  Science,"  and  so,  as  things  which  are 
equal  to  the  same  are  equal  to  one  another,  the 
river  HIddekel  must  be  the  Holy  Ghost.  In  addi- 
tion, the  23rd  Psalm  and  the  Lord's  Prayer  are 
explained.     The  Lord's  Prayer  Is  used  at  "  Chris- 


Christian  Science  29 

tian  Science  "  services,  but  the  reader  inserts 
Mrs.  Eddy's  "  improvement "  after  each  peti- 
tion. For  example,  "  Give  us  this  day  our 
daily  bread,"  means,  we  are  told,  "  Give  us 
grace  for  to-day,  feed  the  famished  affections." 
Christ,  it  seems,  was  too  material  for  Mrs.  Eddy. 
If  we  must  have  an  addition,  the  child's  —  in 
Hans  Andersen's  story,  is  perhaps  the  truest  to 
the  original  meaning — "  give  us  this  day  our  daily 
bread,  with  plenty  of  butter  on  it."  Mrs.  Eddy's 
comment  on  the  words  of  Jesus,  "  They  shall  lay 
hands  on  the  sick  and  they  shall  recover,"  is 
"  Here  the  word  hands  is  used  metaphorically." 
Comment  on  this  comment  is  scarcely  needed. 
Of  the  first  part  of  the  book  "  Science  and 
Health  "  Miss  Sturge  writes,  "  It  abounds  in  con- 
tradictions, not  only  to  be  found  in  the  same  page, 
the  same  paragraph,  the  same  sentence,  but  often 
between  two  words  used  consecutively." 

Yet,  in  spite  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  cheap  and  confused 
philosophy,  or  perhaps  we  should  call  it  metaphys- 
ics, many  are  cured  by  "  Christian  Science." 
This,  however,  does  not  prove  the  truth  of  her 
theories,  as  she  seems  to  imagine.     Mental  heal- 


30       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

ing  can  be  traced  back  for  three  thousand  years 
and  has  been  connected  with  the  strangest  theories. 
For  example,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  Valentine 
Greatrakes  healed  many  in  Ireland  without  medi- 
cine, though  he  maintained  that  all  diseases  were 
due  to  evil  spirits.  The  theory  is  not  of  great  con- 
sequence, though,  of  course,  a  true  theory  is  bet- 
ter than  an  absurd  one.  What  matters  is  the  pa- 
tient^s  faith.  The  power  of  an  idea,  if  it  be 
firmly  held,  can  cure  many  diseases.  "  Christian 
Science,"  says  Sir  William  Osier,  "  is  probably 
nothing  more  than  mental  suggestion  under  an- 
other name."  The  mind  of  man  has  more  power 
than  is  generally  admitted,  and  is  wider  than  we 
are  aware  of.  It  may  be  compared  to  an  iceberg, 
of  which  the  greater  part  is  under  water.  This 
unknown  part,  this  undermind,  which  is  at  work 
in  our  dreams,  is  also  at  work  on  our  health,  and 
suggestions  given  to  it  from  our  conscious  waking 
minds  or  from  others  can  rouse  it  to  heal,  for 
mind  and  body  are  most  closely  connected,  as  may 
be  seen  when  someone  blushes  as  the  result  of  a 
thought  or  of  another's  word.  A  patient  may  be 
literally  "  saved  by  hope,"  hope  inspired  by  an- 


Christian  Science  31 

other's  words  or  by  his  own  faith.  This  Is  the 
truth  which  Mrs.  Eddy  seized  upon  and  distorted. 
She  tried  to  make  a  monopoly  of  a  universal  prin- 
ciple. The  mistake,  often  a  disastrous  mistake  of 
the  Christian  Scientists,  Is  to  apply  this  principle 
to  all  cases.  A  simple  operation  might  have 
saved  many  who  have  become  permanently 
maimed  or  who  have  died  under  Christian  Sci- 
ence treatment.  So  Dr.  Stephen  Paget  In  his 
book,  ''  The  Faith  and  Works  of  Christian  Sci- 
ence," can  say  of  them,  "  They  bully  dying  women 
and  let  babies  die  In  pain;  they  rob  the  epileptic 
of  their  bromide,  the  heart  cases  of  their  digitalis; 
let  appendicitis  go  on  to  septic  peritonitis,  gastric 
ulcer  to  perforation  of  the  stomach;  compel  them 
who  should  be  kept  still  to  take  exercise  and  with- 
hold from  all  cases  of  cancer  all  hope  of  cure. 
To  these  works  of  the  devil  they  bring  their  one 
gift,  wilful  and  complete  ignorance,  and  their  nurs- 
ing would  be  a  farce.  If  it  were  not  a  tragedy." 
Drugs,  according  to  "  Christian  Science,"  only  act 
because  they  are  expected  to  have  certain  effects; 
but  drugs  act  on  frogs  —  what  are  the  metaphys- 
ical  or   religious  theories   of   frogs?     Would    a 


32       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

Christian  Scientist  take  an  ounce  of  prussic  acid 
and  trust  to  his  belief  that  it  would  have  no  effect, 
to  save  him?  Doctors,  it  is  true,  do  not  give 
drugs  as  much  as  they  used  to  do;  but  for  certain 
diseases,  certain  drugs  are  always  given,  because 
the  doctor  knows  that  drugs,  like  mental  sugges- 
tion, are  means  by  which  nature  may  be  helped 
to  do  the  work  which  nothing  can  do  for  her. 

Dr.  Paget  quotes  one  rather  ludicrous  case,  sent 
him  by  a  doctor  to  illustrate  Christian  Science 
methods.  The  doctor  was  consulted  by  a  man 
who  had,  for  nearly  a  year,  been  treated  by  Chris- 
tian Scientists  for  deafness  without  any  improve- 
ment. He  examined  the  ear,  removed  a  pledget 
of  cotton  and  some  wax,  and  the  hearing  was 
promptly  restored. 

An  American  doctor  wrote  to  Paget,  "  I  should 
say  I  had  seen  about  a  hundred  cases  in  which  the 
only  chance  for  cure  had  been  lost  through  the 
Christian  Science  treatment." 

At  the  end  of  "  Science  and  Health,"  and  also  in 
Christian  Science  papers,  there  are  testimonies  by  ^ 
those   who    have   been   cured   through    Christian 
Science.     No  doubt  many  of  these  cures  are  genu- 


Christian  Science  33 

ine,  but  they  are  not  due  to  anything  peculiar  to 
Christian  Science.  They  might  occur  equally  well 
in  the  Church  if  that  body  had  not  forgotten  the 
truth  which  Mrs.  Eddy  has  distorted.  Yet,  in 
studying  these  testimonies  of  cure,  it  is  impossible 
always  to  be  sure  that  the  patient  really  suffered 
from  the  disease  of  which  he  claims  to  have  been 
cured.  "  There  are  few  things,"  says  Dr.  Porritt, 
"  upon  which  so  little  reliance  can  be  placed  as  a 
patient's  own  estimate  of  his  symptoms  or  the 
nature  of  his  illness.  Knowing  this,  doctors 
rarely  treat  themselves." 

These  testimonies  of  cure  make  Christian  Sci- 
ence resemble  a  new  patent  medicine,  advertised 
with  pictures  of  those  who  have  tried  It  and  re- 
covered. But  neither  Christian  Scientists  nor  the 
patent  medicine  advertisers  give  us  a  list  of  those 
who  have  tried  their  treatments  and  not  recovered. 
"  There  is,"  says  Dr.  Paget,  "  but  one  way  to 
get  at  the  truth  about  a  new  method  of  medical  or 
surgical  treatment,  every  case  must  be  reported.'^ 

In  theology  Mrs.  Eddy  revived,  though  prob- 
ably without  knowing  It,  the  heresy  of  Cerlnthus, 
a  theory  about  Jesus  which  the  Church  rejected  as 


34       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

an  insufficient  and  misleading  Interpretation.  St. 
John  is  said  to  have  written  his  gospel  in  answer 
to  Cerlnthus.  "  The  word  became  flesh  and 
dwelt  among  us  "  was  not  spiritual  enough  for 
Cerlnthus  and  Mrs.  Eddy.  In  the  Herald  of 
Christian  Science  for  April,  191 8,  there  Is  pub- 
lished a  sermon  of  Mrs.  Eddy's.  Here  Is  a  sen- 
tence from  it,  "  Jesus  was  not  Christ;  Christ  was 
but  another  name  for  God,  and  it  was  an  honorary 
title  bestowed  on  Jesus  for  His  great  goodness. 
In  the  original  texts  the  term  God  took  its  origin 
from  the  word  good  —  hence  the  term  Christ 
Jesus,  a  good  man." 

The  only  explanation  which  I  can  see  of  this 
astonishing  sentence  is  that  Mrs.  Eddy  Is  confus- 
ing the  Greek  word  Chrestos,  good,  with  the 
Greek  word  Christos,  Christ  or  Messiah  or  An- 
ointed. But  theological  speculation  without  a 
knowledge  of  Greek  has  led  far  greater  minds 
than  Mrs.  Eddy's  Into  absurdities.  Christian 
Scientists  are  increasing  in  numbers  and  will  in- 
crease much  more  unless  the  Church  emphasizes 
the  truth  which,  mixed  with  many  errors,  Mrs. 
Eddy  taught.     Christianity  Is  a   gospel   for  the 


Christian  Science  35 

body  as  well  as  for  the  soul.  This  has  often  been 
overlooked,  and  In  the  Christian  Science  move- 
ment the  Church  Is  suffering  the  vengeance  of  a 
forgotten  truth.  In  fact,  almost  all  sects  are  due 
to  the  Church's  neglect  of  some  part  of  the  Cath- 
olic Faith.  "  When  the  historic  Church  forgets, 
new  bodies  arise  to  remind  her."  Amongst  oth- 
ers, doctors  are  stimulating  the  Church  to  action. 
In  the  British  Medical  Journal  of  June  i8th,  19 lo. 
Sir  Clifford  Allbutt  wrote:  "  Probably  no  limb, 
no  viscus  Is  so  far  a  vessel  of  dishonour  as  to  be 
wholly  outside  the  renewals  of  the  spirit." 

Sir  Dyce  Duckworth,  who  was  senior  physician 
at  St.  Bartholomew's,  London,  for  many  years, 
has  said,  "  I  will  express  my  opinion  that  our  20th 
century  Christendom  Is  generally  lax  and  feeble 
In  offering  earnest  prayers  for  the  sick  In  all  stages 
and  for  a  blessing  on  the  remedial  means  em- 
ployed. We  should  look  to  a  Higher  Power  than 
that  of  man  to  aid  at  the  bedside.  ...  I  see  no 
objection  to  the  practice  of  unction  and  laying  on 
of  hands  by  Christian  ministers  for  those  who  de- 
sire it."  Even  the  Bishops  of  the  Lambeth  Con- 
ference of  1908  declared  that  '*  sickness  has  too 


36       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

often  exclusively  been  regarded  as  a  cross  to  be 
borne  with  passive  resignation,  whereas  it  should 
have  been  regarded  as  a  weakness  to  be  overcome 
by  the  power  of  the  spirit."  A  bishop,  It  may  be 
mentioned,  Is  Instructed  at  his  consecration  to 
"  heal  the  sick,"  yet  we  seldom  hear  of  them  do- 
ing It. 

The  Communion  Service,  again,  Is  plainly  In- 
tended to  be  a  strengthening  of  the  body  as  well  as 
of  the  spirit,  as  the  words  '*  preserve  thy  body  " 
Indicate.  In  some  of  the  old  liturgies,  this  Is  even 
clearer,  for  example,  "  make  all  who  communicate 
to  receive  a  medicine  of  life  for  the  healing  of  any 
sickness  "  Is  a  prayer  in  Bishop  Seraplon's  Sacra- 
mentary.  The  New  Testament  has  many  allu- 
sions to  God's  power  to  heal  the  body.  "  The 
prayer  of  faith  shall  save  the  sick "  St.  James 
writes. 

This  part  of  Christianity  can,  no  doubt,  be  ex- 
aggerated. Bodily  health  is  not  everything;  Its 
absence  may  be  a  benefit.  St.  Paul's  mission  to 
the  Galatians  was  the  result  of  an  Illness.  St. 
Paul  was  not  healed,  though  he  was  given  strength 
to  bear  his  "  thorn  in  the  flesh."     After  all,  as  Dr. 


Christian  Science  37 

Paget  ask3,  "  Are  we  worth  being  well?  "  How 
would  we  use  perfect  health  if  we  had  it?  Yet, 
none  the  less,  Christ  showed  Himself  as  a  Healer 
of  men's  bodies  and  we  sometimes  sing  in  church, 
"  Thy  touch  has  still  its  ancient  power." 

Christian  Science,  then,  reminds  us  that  Chris- 
tianity is  a  gospel  for  the  body;  there  is  also 
something  to  be  learned  from  a  Christian  Science 
service.  The  whole  congregation  is  the  choir, 
there  is  a  period  for  silent  prayer,  and  many  may 
think  it  a  good  point  that  there  is  no  sermon. 

Among  Christian  Scientists  women  are  re- 
garded at  least  as  men's  equals.  They  have  got 
rid  of  the  Oriental  attitude  to  women  which  still 
lurks  in  the  Church  as  a  part  of  her  Jewish  heri- 
tage. Their  theology  is  "  heretical,"  yet  there  is 
among  them  a  sense  of  the  presence  and  spiritual- 
ity and  law  of  God  which,  like  the  note  of  a  great 
bell,  brings  quiet  into  their  lives.  They  show  that 
nervous  strain  can  be  removed  by  lifting  the  mind 
in  meditation  on  the  Universal  Life  of  God. 

Three  books  written  to  expose  the  errors  of 
Christian  Science  mention  these  good  points  in  it: 

( I )      As    a    novel    and    militant    heterodoxy 


38       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

against  a  narrow  and  inadequate  orthodoxy  it  is 
forcing  men  from  the  old  ruts. 

(2)  It  has  changed  the  tone  of  life  of  many 
self-pitying  people. 

(3)  It  exhibits  "The  victory  of  mind  over 
its  tyrants,  fear  and  anger." 

A  Frenchman  once  said  that  the  ancient  Ro- 
mans conquered  the  world  because  they  could 
learn  from  their  enemies  and  because  their  sol- 
diers kept  their  sacramentum  or  military  oath. 
This  remark  is  not  without  its  meaning  for  the 
Christian  Church. 


Ill 

THEOSOPHY 

ATHEOSOPHIST  has  been  compared  to  a 
man  who  fights  with  his  back  to  a  spring 
door,  behind  which  he  can  disappear  when  the  in- 
terview becomes  unpleasant.  That  is  to  say,  when 
any  doctrine  of  his  is  found  indefensible,  he  has 
only  to  declare  that  it  is  no  part  of  Theosophy. 
Theosophy,  in  fact,  is  more  like  a  cloud  than  a 
creed,  it  is  vague  in  outline  and  changeable  in 
form,  perhaps,  too,  it  keeps  the  sunshine  from 
those  who  are  under  it.  One  doctrine,  however, 
is  found  in  all  Theosophical  books  and  is,  I  think, 
held  by  all  Theosophists.  This  doctrine  is  Re- 
incarnation. "  The  doctrine  of  Reincarnation," 
says  Mrs.  Besant,  a  leading  Theosophist,  "  is  the 
very  core  and  essence  of  Theosophy."  Reincar- 
nation means  "  that  the  growth  and  development 
of  the  human  soul  is  accomplished  by  means  of 
successive  returns  to  physical  life  with  intervening 
periods  of  rest."     It  differs  from  transmigration, 

39 


40       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

which  means  the  return  of  human  beings  as  ani- 
mals, as  well  as  in  the  bodies  of  men  and  women. 
Reincarnation  is  therefore  merely  an  improvement 
on  transmigration,  and  belief  in  transmigration 
seems  to  develop,  when  an  ethical  religion,  a  re- 
ligion with  a  standard  of  conduct  and  a  system  of 
rewards  and  punishments,  comes  in  contact  with  a 
decaying  Totemism.  The  underlying  idea  in 
Totemism  is  that  of  a  life  shared  in  common  by 
the  human  and  animal  creation. 

Mrs.  Besant  asserts  that  Christ  accepted  Re- 
incarnation. The  proof  she  offers  is  that  he 
told  his  disciples  that  John  the  Baptist  was  Elijah. 
The  saying  referred  to  is  in  St.  Matthew  17:12 
and  13  and  certainly  does  not  mean  that  the 
Baptist  was  Elijah  reincarnate,  but  rather  that  he 
prepared  the  way  for  Christ  "  in  the  spirit  and 
power  of  Elijah."  See  St.  Luke  1:17.  Further- 
more the  saying  suggests  that  the  treatment  of 
John  by  Herod  and  Herodias  was,  as  it  were,  a 
repetition  of  the  treatment  of  Ehjah  by  Ahab  and 
Jezebel.  Theosophists  also  say  that  St.  Matthew 
16  :i4  implies  a  belief  in  reincarnation,  but  the  re- 
turn of  great  historical  figures  at  particular  crises 


Tkeosophy  41 


is  not  reincarnation,  even  supposing  that  such  a 
return  ever  really  happened.  Another  proof  of 
belief  in  reincarnation  is  found  by  Theosophists  in 
St.  John  9:2.  The  question  there  might  mean 
that  the  people  held  that  doctrine;  it  does  not  show 
that  Christ  did.  More  probably,  it  is  an  example 
of  the  Jewish  belief  that  even  an  unborn  child 
can  commit  sin. 

Theosophists  maintain  that  reincarnation  ex- 
plains the  inequalities  of  life.  Our  condition  in 
this  life  is,  they  say,  the  result  of  our  past  lives 
and  our  condition  in  future  lives  will  depend  on 
our  conduct  in  this  one.  Conduct  is  a  seed  which 
we  sow  in  one  life  and  must  reap  in  the  next. 
This  law  of  cause  and  effect  is  known  as  Karma, 
pronounced  Kurma,  a  Hindu  word  meaning  action. 
Like  much  else  in  Theosophy  it  is  borrowed  from 
India,  where  it  has  been  accepted  from  about  the 
sixth  century  before  Christ  up  to  the  present  day. 
It  is  summed  up  in  the  Hindu  proverb : 

"  Who  plants  mangoes,  mangoes  shall  he  eat. 
Who  plants  thorn  bushes,  thorns  shall  wound  his 
feet." 


42       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

The  Christian  parallel  is  the  doctrine  that 
"  what  a  man  sows,  that  shall  he  also  reap."  The 
difference  consists  in  a  conscious  reaping  in  this 
life  or  in  the  spirit  world  of  what  one  has  sown, — 
as  for  instance  David  did  in  the  Old  Testament 
story  or  the  rich  man  in  Christ's  parable  and  the 
theory  that  we  must  pay  for  unknown,  unremem- 
bered  acts  in  another  life  on  earth.  Karma  in  its 
working,  is  as  if  a  father  were  to  wake  his  chil- 
dren in  the  middle  of  the  night  and  whip  them 
silently  for  forgotten  faults  of  the  past  day.  This 
would  be  a  method  of  education  of  doubtful  value. 

The  following  points  may  be  noticed  in  connec- 
tion with  the  doctrine  of  reincarnation  and  the 
theory  of  Karma  which  is  closely  bound  up  with  it. 

( I )  There  is  no  satisfactory  evidence.  The- 
osophists  say  that  sudden  friendships  and  infant 
prodigies  are  evidence,  but  if  it  be  true,  there 
should  be  more  of  both  and  infant  prodigies  are 
prodigies  only  in  music  and  numbers,  not  in  science 
or  philosophy.  This  merely  means  that  the  oper- 
ations of  the  mind  that  have  to  do  with  numbers 
are  often  developed  early.  It  may  be  mentioned 
that  reincarnation  does  much  to  deprive  children 


Theosophy  43 


of  their  charm  and  freshness.  According  to  this 
theory,  a  child  is  only  like  an  old  man  who  has  lost 
his  memory.  Mrs.  Besant  says  that  she  was  a 
Brahmin,  that  is,  a  member  of  the  Hindu  priestly 
caste,  in  a  previous  life;  we  have  only  her  own 
word  for  this  and  if  it  be  true,  he  must  have  been 
a  Brahmin  of  evil  life,  for  in  Hinduism,  it  is  a 
punishment  to  be  reborn  as  a  woman.  (2)  It  im- 
plies that  there  are  no  disturbing  elements,  as  if  a 
seed  must  grow  no  matter  what  the  soil  and 
weather  be;  this  is  unscientific.  In  real  life  the 
consequences  of  actions  are  indeterminate  and 
vary  greatly  according  to  circumstances.  (3)  It 
leads  to  callousness  and  fatalism.  If  Belgian  chil- 
dren, spitted  on  German  bayonets,  are  only  reap- 
ing the  fruit  of  sins  committed  in  their  past  lives, 
why  should  we  be  indignant  at  such  outrages? 
The  Germans  are  only  the  agents  of  these  chil- 
dren's already  determined  destinies.  We  may,  of 
course,  by  helping  others,  make  good  Karma  for 
ourselves,  we  may  "  acquire  merit,"  but  help  ren- 
dered from  that  motive  is  a  cold  and  calculating 
thing.  (4)  In  India,  it  puts  caste  on  a  religious 
basis,  and  caste  or  the  system  of  strict  class  dis- 


44       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

tinctlons  Is  one  of  the  great  social  evils  of  that 
country.  Reincarnation  and  Karma  cannot,  there- 
fore, be  logically  held  along  with  belief  In  a  real 
brotherhood  of  man,  though  Theosophlsts  try  to 
combine  these  doctrines.  (5)  It  is  materialistic; 
If  evil  Is  to  be  rewarded  by  poverty  and  good  by 
prosperity,  then  the  moral  and  the  material  are 
hopelessly  confused;  we  are  back  among  the  Ideas 
which  the  Book  of  Job  was  written  to  refute. 
Moreover,  according  to  the  theory  of  Karma, 
Jesus  must  have  committed  atrocious  crimes  In  a 
previous  life  to  deserve  a  life  of  poverty  ended  by 
crucifixion.  (6)  It  Implies  that  evil  governs  the 
world,  else  why  Is  release  from  Karma  the  aim  of 
Hindu  religion.  This  last  fact  seems  to  show  that 
Hinduism  Itself  Is  an  Implied  criticism  of  the  doc- 
trine of  Karma.  (7)  It  gives  no  help  in  account- 
ing for  the  origin  of  evil;  It  only  puts  the  origin 
further  back.  (8)  It  opposes  the  teaching  of 
Jesus,  who  declared  that  we  cannot  argue  from 
calamity  to  guilt.  Suffering  follows  sin,  but  ow- 
ing to  the  unity  of  mankind,  the  suffering  falls  on 
the  innocent  as  much  as,  even  more,  than  on  the 
guilty.      (9)    It  has  no  great  influence  on  charac- 


Theosophy  45 


ter,  because  it  is  vindictive  not  reformatory,  and 
therefore  it  is  a  method  of  punishment  which  civ- 
ilised men  have  abandoned.  This  is  well  ex- 
plained in  the  essay  on  Theosophy  by  Miss  Dou- 
gall  in  "  Immortality  and  other  Essays."  Sin  is 
removed,  she  argues,  when  the  injury  is  made 
good  and  the  sinner  made  righteous,  but  the  suf- 
fering of  the  sinner  does  not  do  this,  not  even 
when  he  knows  the  reason  of  his  suffering.  It  is 
personal  influence  that  leads  to  that  repentance  or 
change  of  mind  which  really  removes  sin.  Sin- 
ners become  more  degraded  the  more  they  sin, 
they  do  not  necessarily  suffer  more  and  so  the  doc- 
trine of  Karma  is  bad  psychology  and  bad  "  jus- 
tice "  too,  for  according  to  it,  the  suffering  be- 
comes more  and  more  severe,  while  the  sufferers 
become  more  and  more  unable  to  profit  by  it. 
(10)  It  leaves  no  room  for  any  real  union  be- 
tween the  individual  purposes  of  men  and  the  uni- 
versal purpose  or  meaning  of  existence.  It  rep- 
resents us  as  men  in  separate  cells  in  a  prison,  each 
working  out  his  term;  that  is,  it  is  an  unsocial  sys- 
tem. It  makes  expiation,  judgment,  the  only  pur- 
pose of  the  world  process;  it  is  therefore  un-Chris- 


46       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

tian,  for  Christianity  affirms  that  God's  purpose  is 
not  to  dispense  judgment,  but  to  educate  a  race  of 
beings  into  likeness  to  Himself.  (11)  It  leaves 
no  room  for  forgiveness  and  so  between  the  doc- 
trine of  Karma  and  the  gospel  of  the  Love  of  God, 
there  stands  a  great  gulf  fixed.  Compare,  for  in- 
stance, the  last  three  verses  of  the  8th  Chapter  of 
Romans  with  this  Hindu  folk  song  composed  by 
a  believer  in  Reincarnation  and  Karma. 

"  How  many  births  are  past,  I  cannot  tell, 
How  many  yet  to  come,  no  man  can  say, 
But  this  alone  I  know  and  know  full  well, 
That  pain  and  grief  embitter  all  the  way." 

The  author  of  a  pamphlet  "  Elementary  The- 
osophy  "  writes  that  "  Reincarnation  simply  but 
grandly  solves  for  us  the  riddle  of  the  painful 
earth."  It  may  for  some  people,  yet  the  evidence 
is  quite  inconclusive  and  it  is  not  clear  why  man 
must  come  back  to  earth  again  and  again  for  his 
spiritual  benefit,  with  a  new  body  and  no  memory 
of  past  mistakes.  The  doctrine  seems  greatly  to 
overrate  this  earth  as  a  field  for  spiritual  growth. 


Theosophy  47 


(See  Karma  and  Redemption,  by  A.  G.  Hogg,  of 
Madras.) 

Theosophlsts  are  not  content  with  belief  in  rein- 
carnation and  Karma.  They  have  drawn  up  a 
time-table,  as  it  were,  of  the  round  trip  through 
thousands  of  lives.  "  A  Primer  of  Theosophy  " 
tells  us  that  "  the  process  of  evolution  upon  the 
earth,  as  well  as  all  other  worlds,  is  by  seven  suc- 
cessive waves  of  life-giving  energy,  which  it  has 
been  agreed  to  call  rounds  and  during  each  of  these 
stages  of  evolution,  seven  races,  with  many  sub- 
divisions, inhabit  the  earth.  .  .  .  Four  times  that 
great  wave  of  evolutionary  force  has  swept  ov^er 
the  earth  and  four  great  races  have  passed  away. 
The  present  humanity  is  the  fifth  division  of  the 
fifth  race."  There  are  indeed  more  things  in  The- 
osophy than  are  dreamt  of  in  heaven  or  earth. 
When  it  is  asked:  What  is  the  evidence  for  all 
this,  the  answer  is  that  it  is  the  teaching  of  Mahat- 
mas.  Mahatmas  or  Initiates  or  Adepts  or  Mas- 
ters are  beings  who  have  evolved  to  great  heights, 
but  remain  in  touch  with  humanity  that  they  may 
help  its  development  and  teach  Theosophists. 

Madame  Blavatsky,  a   founder  of  the  Theo- 


48       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

sophical  Society,  said  that  she  used  to  meet  some 
of  these  Mahatmas  in  Tibet  and  she  professed  to 
get  letters  from  them.  After  her  death,  her  suc- 
cessor (Mrs.  Besant)  received  letters  in  the  same 
hand  writing  and  welcomed  them  as  from  a  Ma- 
hatma,  until  she  satisfied  herself  that  they  were 
being  forged  by  Mr.  Judge,  another  leader  among 
Theosophists.  On  this  incident,  which  led  to  a 
division  In  the  Theosophlcal  Society,  the  Westmin- 
ster Gazette  of  October  29th,  1891,  commented 
thus :  "  It  Is  a  queer  enough  spectacle  to  see  Mrs. 
Besant  who  regretted  that  her  strict  Intellect  could 
not  accept  miracles  on  the  Christian  evidence 
greedily  swallowing  the  precipitated  revelations 
of  the  Mahatma. 

This  theory  of  Mahatmas  gave  Madame  Bla- 
vatsky  trouble  too.  "  Every  earnest  Theoso- 
phlst,"  she  writes  In  the  ''  Key  to  Theosophy,"  "  re- 
grets to-day  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart  that 
these  sacred  names  and  things  have  ever  been  men- 
tioned before  the  public  and  fervently  wishes  that 
they  had  been  kept  secret  within  a  small  circle  of 
trusted  and  devoted  friends." 

Theosophists  have  taken  this  hint  and  talk  more 


Theosophy  49 


now  of  their  own  investigations  made  on  super- 
physical  planes  and  less  of  revelations  from  Ma- 
hatmas.  The  results  of  these  investigations  are, 
some  of  them,  interesting  enough.  However,  it 
is  necessary  to  examine  carefully  the  evidence  for 
their  reality,  to  consider  the  qualifications  of  those 
who  make  the  Investigations,  to  ask  how  their  dis- 
coveries agree  with  what  we  know  already. 

Though  the  English  may  be  questionable,  the 
sentiment  is  sound  in  the  following  paragraph 
from  an  Indian  paper,  the  Indu  Prakash:  "  Even 
If  Mahatmas  and  their  specially  favoured  asso- 
ciates of  lower  planes,  moving  among  us  do  exist, 
we,  for  one,  would  strongly  deprecate  any  sane 
man  of  healthy  intellect  surrendering  his  reason 
and  conscience  unto  them,  and  becoming  merely 
the  gramophones  repeating  time-worn  shibboleths 
as  so  many  parading  Theosophists  do." 

The  motto  of  the  Theosophical  Society: 
''  There  is  no  religion  higher  than  truth,"  is  one 
that  must  appeal  to  all  Christians  for,  as  Pascal 
said,  "  The  first  of  all  Christian  truths  Is  that 
truth  must  be  loved  above  all,"  yet  when  "  The 
Key  to  Theosophy  "  interprets  the  parable  of  the 


50       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

vine  and  the  branches  in  St.  John  15  by  asserting 
that  "  each  branch  represents  a  new  incarnation  " 
we  are  forced  to  conclude  that  truth  is  one  thing 
and  Theosophical  truth  another  and  a  different 
thing. 

Modern  Theosophy  is  the  result  of  contact  be- 
tween the  Orient  and  the  West.  Theosophists 
are  usually  people  who  have  been  attracted  by 
Oriental  religious  systems,  especially  Hinduism, 
and  who  have  then  made  for  themselves  a  kind 
of  essence  out  of  all  religions  and  named  it  The- 
osophy. Their  theory  is  that  all  religions  are 
essentially  one,  that  behind  all  differences  there  Is 
an  inner  meaning,  a  "  secret  doctrine  "  which  only 
good  Theosophists  know.  "  Theosophy,"  ac- 
cording to  a  Primer  of  the  subject,  *'  Is  the  body 
of  truths  which  form  the  basis  of  all  religions  and 
which  cannot  be  claimed  as  the  exclusive  posses- 
sion of  any."  Hence  it  is  sometimes  called  "  the 
religion  of  religions." 

"  The  Key  to  Theosophy  "  asserts  that  it  Is 
'*  the  essence  of  all  religion  and  of  absolute  truth." 
What  may  perhaps  be  called  the  Bible  of  Theoso- 
phists is  ''  The  Secret  Doctrine,"  by  Madame  Bla- 


Theosophy  5 1 


vatsky.  As  an  example  of  how  Theosophy  illum- 
inates Christianity,  this  quotation  from  Volume  I, 
page  574,  of  "  The  Secret  Doctrine  "  is  worthy  of 
notice:  "When  He  (Jesus)  is  made  to  say  — 
'  I  ascend  to  my  Father  and  your  Father  ' —  it  was 
simply  to  show  that  the  group  of  his  disciples  and 
followers  attracted  to  Him  belonged  to  the  same 
Dhyani  Buddha,  '  Star,'  or  '  Father,'  again  of  the 
same  planetary  realm,  as  He  did."  This  reminds 
one  of  the  student  who  said  that  he  had  mastered 
his  textbook  and  hoped  soon  to  be  able  to  under- 
stand the  notes  explaining  it. 

The  Theosophical  theory  that  we  can  find  the 
highest  common  factor  or  greatest  common  meas- 
ure of  all  religions  and  make  from  it  a  universal 
religion  was  popular  in  the  eighteenth  century,  but 
is  not  easy  to  maintain  now,  because  it  is  in  essen- 
tial points  such  as  the  ideas  of  God  and  of  Salva- 
tion that  religions  differ  most. 

For  instance,  the  moral  teaching,  the  Ethics  of 
Christianity  and  Buddhism  are  like  in  many  re- 
spects. Some  Buddhist  sayings  are  very  Christ- 
like, such  as  "  Hatred  does  not  cease  by  hatred  at 
any  time,  hatred  ceases  by  love  "  and  "  What  is 


52       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

the  use  of  platted  hair,  O  fool !  What  of  the  rai- 
ment of  goatskins?  Within  thee  there  is  raven- 
ing, but  the  outside  thou  makest  clean,"  yet  when 
the  doctrines  of  God  and  salvation  are  compared, 
the  difference  is  complete.  Christian  salvation  is 
fellowship  with  God  in  the  voluntary  service  of 
absolute  good;  Buddhist  salvation  is  Nirvana,  the 
state  of  a  blown-out  flame,  meaning  either  utter  ex- 
tinction or  a  passive  state  of  mind  which  some 
people  might  say  resembled  idiocy. 

The  Christian  works  for  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
the  Buddhist  works  for  his  own  Nirvana,  a  great 
distinction.  Again  Buddha  recognised  no  su- 
preme God,  while  Christianity  is  nothing  else  than 
an  overwhelming,  exultant  idea  of  God.  It  may 
not  now  be  said  that  Christianity  is  an  enclosure 
containing  all  truths,  while  in  other  religions  there 
is  nothing  but  falsehood,  yet  the  Christian  must  be 
able  to  show  that  Christianity  is  the  focus  which 
draws  all  the  rays  of  truth  and  beauty  from  other 
religions  and  fulfils  all  that  is  worthy  in  them. 

Theosophists  are  the  most  tolerant  of  people, 
a  natural  result  of  their  notion  that  the  secret  doc- 
trine of  all  religions  is  the  same.     Christians,  how- 


Theosophy  53 


ever,  believing  that  Christianity  is  the  crown  and 
goal  of  other  religions  must  be  intolerant.  Chris- 
tianity, in  one  single  point,  is  like  Pan-Germanism ; 
it  aims  at  world-dominion.  Every  missionary  is 
a  proof  of  the  intolerance  of  Christianity,  and  so 
it  is  not  surprising  that  Theosophists  are  unfavour- 
able to  Christian  missions.  In  the  "  Key  to  Theos- 
ophy," we  read  of  "  those  sincere  but  vain-glorious 
fools,  the  missionaries,  who  have  sacrificed  their 
lives  in  the  South  Sea  islands  or  China.  .  .  . 
What  good  have  they  done?  They  went  in  one 
case  to  those  who  were  not  yet  ripe  for  any  truth; 
and  in  the  other  to  a  nation  whose  systems  of 
rehgious  philosophy  are  as  grand  as  any." 

This  statement  may  be  compared  with  the  testi- 
mony of  Darwin,  the  naturalist,  after  his  visit  to 
the  South  seas.  "  The  lesson  of  the  missionary 
is  the  enchanter's  wand  "  and  also  with  the  testi- 
mony of  the  United  States  ambassador  to  China  in 
1895.  "  No  one  can  controvert  the  patent  fact 
that  the  Chinese  are  enormously  benefited  by  the 
labours  of  the  missionaries  in  their  midst" 

Opposition  to  missions  is  not  the  only  way  in 
which    Theosophists     show    their     *'  tolerance." 


54       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

Fraud  and  Immorality  are  no  bar  to  high  office  in 
the  Theosophical  Society.  One  of  the  two  found- 
ers of  this  Society  was  Madame  Blavatsky,  the 
daughter  of  a  Russian  called  Hahn.  This 
woman,  the  author  of  the  "  Key  to  Theosophy  " 
gave  exhibitions  of  magic  in  India.  They  at- 
tracted great  attention  until  the  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research  held  an  investigation  in  Madras  in 
1884  and  pronounced  the  performance  to  be 
fraudulent.  The  case  may  be  read  in  Volume  3 
of  the  Proceedings  of  that  Society.  Theoso- 
phists,  however,  are  too  tolerant  to  allow  this  to 
dim  her  light  and  Madame  Blavatsky  is  regarded 
by  them  with  almost  as  much  reverence  as  is  Mrs. 
Eddy  by  Christian  Scientists. 

In  her  "  Key  to  Theosophy  "  this  question  and 
answer  is  found:  "Enquirer  —  Do  you  believe 
In  prayer  and  do  you  ever  pray?  Theosophlst 
—  We  do  not,  we  act  Instead  of  talk."  Madame 
Blavatsky  certainly  could  act. 

I  have  heard  a  Theosophical  lecturer  say  that 
one  must  be  careful  in  quoting  Madame  Blavatsky 
as  she  approved  of  blinds  or  camouflage  in  her 
statements.     Here  is  an  instance:     The  glossary 


Theosophy  55 


of  the  Key  contains  an  explanation  of  the  word 
Christ  or  Chrestos  as  Madame  Blavatsky  prefers 
it.  In  this  note,  Lactantius,  a  Latin  writer  of  the 
third  century,  is  quoted  as  saying  in  his  fourth 
book,  chapter  7 :  "It  is  only  through  ignorance 
that  men  call  themselves  Christians  instead  of 
Chrestians."  The  only  sentence  in  book  4,  chap- 
ter 7,  which  in  the  least  resembles  this  quotation  is, 
*'  But  the  meaning  of  the  name  Christ  must  be  set 
forth  on  account  of  the  error  of  the  ignorant,  who 
by  the  change  of  a  letter  are  accustomed  to  call 
him  Chrestos."  Madame  Blavatsky's  pretended 
quotation  is  therefore  the  exact  opposite  of  what 
Lactantius  said.  This  is  indeed  camouflage.  Let 
this  suffice  for  the  character  and  accuracy  of  Ma- 
dame Blavatsky.  Those  who  wish  to  learn  more 
about  her  will  find  an  account  in  "  A  Modern 
Priestess  of  Isis,"  by  Solovyofi  (translated  by  W. 
Leaf). 

Another  light  among  Theosophists  is  Mr.  C. 
W.  Leadbeater.  This  man  was  guardian  of  a 
Hindu  boy,  Krishnamurthi,  who  was  being  trained 
to  be  a  new  Messiah.  The  father  of  the  boy  took 
an  action  to  recover  possession  of  him  and  won 


^6       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

his  case.  The  report  of  the  trial  said,  "  In  regard 
to  Mr.  Leadbeater,  His  Lordship  observed  that 
in  the  witness  box  he  admitted  that  he  held  what 
his  Lordship  would  only  describe  as  frankly  im- 
moral opinions.  No  father  could  be  obliged  to 
confide  in  the  promises  of  such  a  person."  Mr. 
Leadbeater  has  written  a  book  called  "  The  Chris- 
tian Creed  " ;  one  gem  may  be  extracted  from  this 
work.  "  The  clause  usually  translated  —  suffered 
under  Pontius  Pilate  —  should  be  rendered  —  He 
endured  the  dense  sea."  Theosophists  often  re- 
semble that  Irish  judge  of  whom  it  was  said  that 
he  would  believe  anything  except  an  article  of  the 
Christian  Faith. 

That  short  and  simple  clause  —  suffered  under 
Pontius  Pilate  —  marks  one  of  the  great  distinc- 
tions between  Christianity  and  Theosophy  and 
also  between  Christianity  and  Hinduism,  the  nurs- 
ery of  Theosophy. 

To  Hinduism,  God  is  reposeful  intelligence;  to 
Christianity  and  to  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, God  is  essentially  will.  He  fulfils  Himself 
through  historical  acts.  Christianity  might  be 
termed  the  religious  interpretation  of  history,  it  Is 


Theosophy  57 


concrete  —  not  abstract,  it  centres  on  the  fact  of 
Christ  who  "  suffered  under  Pontius  Pilate  "  at  a 
certain  date  in  a  certain  province  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  Bishop  Westcott  once  expressed  it  thus : 
"  The  thoughts  by  which  other  religions  live  are 
seen  in  Christianity  as  facts  of  human  history." 

St.  Paul's  use  of  the  word  Theosophy  in  I  Cor- 
inthians 1 :24  well  summarises  the  difference  be- 
tween Christianity  as  the  historical  religion  and 
that  vague  and  cloudy  system  known  as  Modern 
Theosophy.  "  We  preach  Christ  crucified,"  he 
writes,  "  a  stumbling-block  to  the  Jews,  sheer  folly 
to  the  Gentiles,  but  for  those  who  are  called, 
whether  Jews  or  Greeks,  a  Christ  who  is  the 
Power  of  God  and  the  Wisdom  of  God/'  The 
Greek  for  "  Wisdom  of  God  "  is  Theosophy. 


IV 

THE    MORMONS    OR    LATTER   DAY    SAINTS 

AT  Cardston,  in  Southern  Alberta,  the  Mor- 
mons have  built  a  "  million  dollar  "  temple 
to  be  the  centre  of  their  propaganda  in  Canada. 
Much  of  the  land  in  the  neighbourhood  has  passed 
into  their  control  and  they  will  probably  own  more 
before  long.  Alberta,  as  may  be  seen  from  the 
map,  is  the  part  of  Canada  nearest  to  Utah,  their 
headquarters  in  the  United  States.  Who,  then, 
are  the  Mormons?  They  are  the  followers  of 
Joseph  Smith,  Junior,  a  native  of  Vermont,  who 
was  born  in  the  year  of  Trafalgar,  1805,  and  was 
murdered  by  a  mob  at  Carthage,  111.,  in  1844. 

"  The  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter  Day 
Saints  is,"  said  Smith,  "  the  only  true  and  living 
church  in  existence.  All  other  religions  are 
wrong,  all  other  religious  bodies  are  corrupt." 
He  asserted  that  the  gospel  was  taken  from  the 
earth  in  the  third  or  fourth  century,  and  only  re- 
stored through  himself. 

58 


The  Mormons  or  Latter  Day  Saints      59 


Joseph  Smith  was  not  remarkable  for  modesty, 
Indeed,  In  his  later  life,  he  rivalled  the  Kaiser  In 
his  claims.  In  1843  he  announced,  "I  know 
more  than  all  the  world  put  together.  ...  I  com- 
bat the  error  of  ages.  ...  I  solve  the  mathe- 
matical problems  of  universities  with  truth,  dia- 
mond truth,  and  God  Is  my  right-hand  man." 

The  success  of  the  Mormons  is  largely  due  to 
arrogant  claims  such  as  these,  for  the  majority  of 
mankind  Is  credulous  and  uncritical.  As  the 
White  Queen  says,  in  "  Alice  Through  the  Look- 
ing Glass,"  by  drawing  a  long  breath  and  shut- 
ting one's  eyes,  one  can  believe  Impossible  things. 

Why  are  the  followers  of  Joseph  Smith,  Junior, 
called  Mormons?  From  Mormon,  a  general  and 
historian,  who  Is  said  to  have  flourished  in  Amer- 
ica In  the  fourth  century  after  Christ  and  to  have 
written  an  abridged  history  of  his  race,  which  was 
burled  by  his  son  Moroni  and  discovered  in  1827 
by  Smith,  who  translated  it  into  English. 

This  abridged  history  Is  now  known  as  the  Book 
of  Mormon.  The  name  Mormon,  Smith  ex- 
plained, is  derived  from  the  Egyptian  word,  mon, 
meaning  good,  with  the  addition  of  more,  con- 


6o       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

tracted  to  mor,  hence  Mormon  means  more  good. 
It  may  be  mentioned  that  the  English  word, 
"  more/'  was  not  in  existence  in  the  time  of  Mor- 
mon's alleged  existence,  and  even  if  it  were,  how 
did  Mormon's  father  and  mother  come  to  know 
English?  According  to  Smith,  the  Book  of  Mor- 
mon was  written  on  gold  plates  in  "  reformed 
Egyptian  "  characters  and  translated  by  him,  with 
the  aid  of  the  Urim  and  Thummim;  the  latter, 
from  his  description,  seem  to  have  been  very  sim- 
ilar to  two  prisms  of  a  chandelier.  A  copy  of 
some  of  the  characters  on  these  plates  was  shown 
to  Professor  Anthon,  a  distinguished  American 
classical  scholar.  In  a  letter  to  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Coit,  dated  April  3rd,  1841,  Professor  Anthon 
says  of  these  characters:  "A  very  brief  exami- 
nation of  the  paper  convinced  me  that  it  was  a 
mere  hoax,  and  a  very  clumsy  one  too." 

A  transcription  of  these  characters  is  still  in 
existence,  and  it  may  be  seen  that  they  could  easily 
have  been  formed  by  Joseph  Smith  from  a  recol- 
lection of  the  Indian  symbols  cut  on  tombstones  in 
his  neighbourhood,  and  from  the  astronomical 
signs  which  are  often  found  in  a  farmer's  almanac. 


The  Mormons  or  Latter  Day  Saints      6i 

The  original  gold  plates  were,  unfortunately,  re- 
moved by  the  angel  who  revealed  them  to  Joseph 
Smith,  Junior.  The  doctrines  of  the  Book  of 
Mormon  are  those  popular  in  Smith's  part  of  the 
country  when  he  was  a  boy.  He  grew  up  in  a 
turmoil  of  sects,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that,  when 
there  were  so  many  confusing  doctrines  around 
him,  he  should  have  thought  of  establishing  a  sect 
of  his  own,  and  that  fragments  of  these  various 
doctrines  should  have  found  their  way  into  his 
book.  The  book  indeed  is  full  of  "  local  colour." 
Beginning  in  1826,  there  was  a  widespread  anti- 
Masonic  crusade  in  the  States;  in  the  Book  of 
Mormon,  published  in  1830,  there  Is  a  violent  at- 
tack on  secret  societies.  Moreover,  the  main  Idea 
of  the  Book  of  Mormon,  that  the  Red  Indians  are 
the  descendants  of  the  ten  lost  tribes  of  Israel,  was 
very  popular  In  Smith's  time,  and  was  the  subject 
of  many  books  and  sermons.  Again,  the  dream 
of  Lehi,  in  the  Book  of  Mormon,  Is  remarkably 
like  a  dream  of  Joseph  Smith's  own  father,  related 
in  ''  Biographical  Sketches  of  Joseph  Smith  and 
his  Progenitors,"  by  his  mother,  Lucy  Smith. 
A  Mormon  elder  says  of  the  Book  of  Mormon : 


62       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

"  In  Its  pages  there  are  no  anachronisms  and  no 
contradictions."  "  Take  away  the  Book  of  Mor- 
mon and  the  revelations,"  Joseph  Smith  declared, 
"  and  where  is  our  religion?  "  "  We  believe  the 
Book  of  Mormon  to  be  the  word  of  God,"  Is  the 
eighth  of  the  Mormon  articles  of  faith. 

These  are  rash  statements,  for  several  glaring 
anachronisms  have  been  pointed  out  by  Bishop 
Jones  of  Utah.  The  Book  professes  to  be  an  ac- 
count of  —  ( I )  The  Jaredltes,  who  left  the  tower 
of  Babel  at  the  time  of  the  confusion  of  tongues 
and  came  to  America  In  barges,  but  owing  to  in- 
ternal dissensions  became  extinct;  (2)  The  Neph- 
ites,  a  colony  of  Jews  under  Lehl,  who  left  Jeru- 
salem In  the  first  year  of  Zedeklah,  597  before 
Christ,  and  landed  on  the  western  coast  of  South 
America.  After  the  death  of  Lehl,  these  people 
divided  and  were  known  as  Nephites  and  La- 
manites.  The  Nephites  established  prosperous 
commonwealths,  but  the  Lamanites  fell  under 
the  curse  of  darkness,  became  dark  In  skin 
and  degenerated  into  the  Red  Indians,  who  are 
their  lineal  descendants.  The  final  struggle  be- 
tween these  two  peoples  resulted  in  the  destruction 


The  Mormons  or  Latter  Day  Saints      63 

of  the  Nephltes  about  400  A.  D.,  but  not  before 
their  records  had  been  abridged  by  Mormon  and 
hidden  by  his  son,  Moroni,  for  Joseph  Smith  to 
find  and  translate  in  the  nineteenth  century.  As 
Bishop  Jones  shows,  this  remarkable  story  has 
some  equally  remarkable  flaws.  For  example,  the 
Book  of  Mormon  quotes  Isaiah,  chapter  48-54, 
as  being  among  the  writings  carried  away  from 
Jerusalem  in  the  first  year  of  Zedekiah,  but  these 
chapters  could  not  have  been  written  until  nearly 
fifty  years  later,  so  the  Nephltes  must  have  car- 
ried away  writings  which  were  not  yet  in  existence. 
Again,  the  Nephltes,  who  left  Jerusalem  about  600 
B.  C,  according  to  the  Book  of  Mormon,  had  in 
America  synagogues  *'  built  after  the  manner  of 
the  Jews."  Now,  synagogues  are  not  mentioned 
among  the  Jews  until  200  B.  C,  so  once  more  the 
Nephltes  seem  to  have  succeeded  in  bringing  from 
Jerusalem  something  which  was  not  there ;  in  this 
case,  the  synagogue  system.  These  are  only  two 
points,  and  there  are  several  other  ImpossiblHtles 
in  the  Book  of  Mormon.  It  Is,  Indeed,  a  very 
shaky  foundation  on  which  to  build  '*  The  only 
true  and  living  church  in  existence."     The  theory 


64       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

that  the  Book  of  Mormon  Is  based  on  an  unpub- 
lished story  by  a  man  called  Spaulding  has  strong 
evidence  to  support  It  and  has  not  been  disproved 
by  the  discovery  In  Honolulu  of  a  manuscript  story 
by  Spaulding  which  does  not  resemble  the  Book  of 
Mormon,  for  Spaulding  wrote  more  than  one  ro- 
mance. The  evidence  may  be  read  in  "  The  True 
Origin  of  the  Book  of  Mormon,"  by  Shook  (Stan- 
dard Pub.  Co.,  Cincinnati). 

Mormons  are  of  two  kinds:  The  Utah  Mor- 
mons and  the  Iowa  Mormons.  The  Iowa  Mor- 
mons, who  call  themselves  "  The  Reorganized 
Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter  Day  Saints," 
separated  from  the  Utah  Mormons  on  the  ques- 
tion of  polygamy  or  plural  marriage.  They  have 
a  church  In  Toronto  and  one  of  their  bishops  used 
to  preach  throughout  the  winter  on  Sunday  even- 
ings in  one  of  the  city  theatres.  The  sermon  was 
usually  "  scriptural,"  with  scarcely  any  reference 
to  Mormon  fancies,  perhaps  a  hurried  allusion  to 
the  restoration  of  the  gospel  to  earth  In  1830  — 
the  birth  year  of  Mormonism.  There  also  were 
on  occasions  some  plaintive  remarks  on  the  fact 
that  the  papers  will  not  report  his  sermons,  some 


The  Mormons  or  Latter  Day  Saints      G^ 

appeals  to  patriotic  sentiment  and  for  a  large  col- 
lection, and  a  reminder  that  there  would  be  a  bap- 
tismal service  during  the  week  at  the   Mormon 
church.     Some  inoffensive  hymns  were  sung  from 
the  "  Saints  Hymnal,"  but  not  the  one  in  which  the 
Book  of  Mormon  is  referred  to  as  "  Truth's  tri^ 
umphal  car."     Now  these  Reorganized  Mormons 
declare  that  they  are  the  true  followers  of  Joseph 
Smith,  the  founder  of  Mormonism,  and  their  claim 
has  been  upheld  more  than  once  by  the  courts  of 
the  United  States.     Brigham  Young,  who  led  the 
Saints  to  Utah  in  1847  and  who  had  at  least  nine- 
teen wives,  they  describe  as  a  usurper  who  fastened 
polygamy  on  the  church.     This  raises  the  ques- 
tion "  Who  introduced  the  doctrine  of  plural  mar- 
riage among  the  Mormons?"     If  Joseph  Smith 
did,  then  the  Reorganized  Mormons  are  not  his 
true  followers,   for  they  reject  polygamy.     The 
evidence  shows  that  towards  the  end  of  his  career 
Joseph  Smith,  like  Mohammed,  became  a  polyg- 
amist,  but  was  too  timid  openly  to  make  polyg- 
amy a   doctrine  of  the   Mormon   Church.     One 
fragment  of  the  evidence  may  be  given.     Eliza 
Snow,  one  of  Brigham  Young's  wives,  wrote  a 


66       Four  Modem  Religious  Movements 

''  Biography  of  Lorenzo  Snow,"  her  brother.  In 
this  book  she  says:  '*  The  prophet  Joseph  had 
taught  me  the  principle  of  plural  or  celestial  mar- 
riage and  I  was  married  to  him  for  time  and  eter- 
nity. In  consequence  of  the  Ignorance  of  most  of 
the  saints,  as  well  as  people  of  the  world,  on  this 
subject,  it  was  not  mentioned,  only  privately  be- 
tween the  few  whose  minds  were  enlightened  on 
the  subject."  In  1852  there  was  published  by  the 
Mormon  Church  a  ''  Revelation  on  the  eternity 
of  the  marriage  covenant,  including  plurality  of 
wives.  Given  through  Joseph  the  seer,  in  Nau- 
voo,  Hancock  county,  Illinois,  July  12th,  1843." 
This  document,  too  long  to  quote,  Is  pronounced 
a  forgery  by  the  Reorganized  Mormon  Church, 
yet  it  Is  quite  in  Joseph's  style.  It  agrees  with  his 
own  practice,  and  the  allusions  In  it  to  his  first 
wife,  Emma,  are  very  natural.  For  Instance : 
"  And  let  mine  handmaid,  Emma  Smith,  receive 
all  those  that  have  been  given  unto  my  servant  Jos- 
eph .  .  .  and  again,  verily  I  say,  let  mine  hand- 
maid forgive  my  servant  Joseph  his  trespasses." 
One  purpose,  In  fact,  of  the  message  Is  obviously 
to  make  Emma  keep  quiet,  and  who  but  Joseph 


The  Mormons  or  Latter  Day  Saints      67 

would  have  so  useful  a  revelation?  The  doctrine 
of  plural  marriage  was  introduced  by  Joseph 
Smith  (though  secretly),  because  he  liked  the 
practice  of  it  and  so  did  other  Mormon  elders  — 
but  how  were  women  to  be  won  over?  First,  of 
course,  by  telling  them  that  it  was  a  revelation 
from  God,  and  secondly,  by  telling  them  that  by 
marrying  a  Mormon  elder,  they  gained  a  sure 
passport  to  heaven. 

A  woman's  point  of  view  in  the  matter  of  polyg- 
amy is  expressed  in  a  book  which  is  perhaps  the 
best  antidote  to  Mormonism  in  existence.  The 
writer,  Mrs.  Stenhouse,  was  the  wife  of  a  Mor- 
mon elder  and  she  published  her  experiences  under 
the  title  "  Tell  it  All,"  or  "  An  Englishwoman  in 
Utah."  Mrs.  Stenhouse  became  a  Mormon  in 
1849  while  in  England.  Soon  after,  there  came 
rumours  of  polygamy  among  the  Mormons  in 
America,  but  their  missionaries  vehemently  con- 
tradicted these  charges.  For  example,  John  Tay- 
lor, a  Mormon  apostle,  said  at  a  public  meeting  in 
France  in  reference  to  the  accusations  of  poly- 
gamy, "  These  things  are  too  outrageous  to  admit 
of  belief."     At  the  time  he  uttered  these  words, 


68       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

he  had  four  wives  living  In  Salt  Lake  City.  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Stenhouse  settled  In  Utah  about  1857, 
but  left  the  Mormon  Church  about  the  year  1870, 
having  had  enough  of  its  despotism  and  absurdity. 
Another  account  of  Mormon  polygamy  may  be 
found  In  "  New  America,"  by  Hepworth  Dixon, 
who  visited  Salt  Lake  City  in  1867  and  was  enter- 
tained by  Brigham  Young  and  other  prominent 
Mormons.  ''  In  my  opinion,"  Dixon  wrote, 
"  Mormonism  Is  not  a  religion  for  women,  it  low- 
ers her  In  the  social  scale.  .  .  .  The  Mormon 
women  know  very  little  and  feel  an  Interest  in  very 
few  things."  "  Women  at  Salt  Lake  City  are 
made  to  keep  their  place."  Dixon  also  gives  an 
interesting  opinion  about  Joseph  Smith.  "  Had 
Smith,"  he  says,  "  hved  long  enough  for  the  facts 
of  his  career  to  become  known,  many  persons  think 
that  among  a  people  keenly  alive  to  humour,  he 
would  have  found  no  lasting  dupes." 

Owing  to  the  intervention  of  the  United  States 
Government,  the  Utah  Mormons  gave  up  polyg- 
amy, officially  In  1890.  Yet  It  has  been  stated 
by  non-Mormons  that  unofficially  It  is  still  prac- 


The  Mormons  or  Latter  Day  Saints      69 

tised  and  would  probably  be  revived  openly  if  the 
Saints  gained  sufficient  political  power. 

The  first  converts  to  Mormonism  outside  Amer- 
ica were  for  the  most  part  English  and  Welsh 
Methodists.  Times  were  bad  in  England  in  the 
middle  of  the  last  century,  hence  the  promise  of 
lands  and  houses  in  this  world,  as  well  as  salva- 
tion in  the  next,  won  many  to  the  new  sect.  Some 
were  draw^n  to  Utah  by  the  announcement  that 
God  was  about  to  destroy  the  Gentile  or  non- 
Mormon  world,  and  that  safety  could  only  be 
found  in  the  valley  of  the  Salt  Liake.  The  pros- 
perity of  the  Mormons  in  Utah  was  due  first  of  all 
to  their  own  industry,  and  secondly  to  the  discov- 
ery of  gold  in  California  about  1849.  This 
brought  thousands  to  the  West,  and  gave  the  Mor- 
mons a  market  for  their  produce. 

Mormons  are  very  ready  to  quote  the  Bible  in 
support  of  their  doctrines.  They  regard  the  Bi- 
ble, however,  as  if  it  were  a  Chinese  picture,  that 
is,  with  no  perspective  —  all  is  viewed  on  the  same 
level.  They  do  not  realize  that  though  God  is  the 
same,  man's  knowledge  of  God  is  different  from 


yo      Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

generation  to  generation  —  Jeremiah,  for  exam- 
ple, had  a  greater  and  wider  knowledge  of  God 
than  Samuel.  Even  if  we  follow  them  in  the 
foolish  habit  of  quoting  isolated  Bible  texts,  some 
of  their  principles  can  be  refuted  by  texts.  We 
read  for  instance,  in  i  Timothy,  chapter  3,  verse 
2 :  "  The  bishop  must  be  the  husband  of  one 
wife  " ;  yet  the  Mormon  bishop,  Lee,  who  was  exe- 
cuted for  his  share  in  the  Mountain  Meadows  mas- 
sacre, had  18  wives. 

George  Townsend  concludes  his  book  on  the 
"Conversion  of  Mormons"  with  these  words: 
"  We  believe  that  the  preaching  in  Utah  of  the 
historic  gospel  and  of  a  more  reasonable  and  spir- 
itual faith  will  put  to  shame  the  old  Mormonism 
and  compel  further  eliminations  and  further  sub- 
stitutions. The  Latter  Day  Saints  have  an  ad- 
miration for  the  good  and  true  as  well  as  other 
men,  and  if  the  lives  of  our  church  people  are  more 
clean  and  kind  than  those  of  the  Mormon  people, 
if  our  ministers  are  more  courageous  and  intelli- 
gent than  the  Mormon  ministers.  If  our  church 
has  in  it  more  of  the  idealism  and  heroism  of 
Jesus  than  the  Mormon  system,  if  our  religion 


The  Mormons  or  Latter  Day  Saints      "ji 

gives  purer  light  to  the  soul  in  its  aspirations  after 
the  Divine  than  does  the  Mormon  religion,  then 
there  will  be  little  need  to  decry  Mormonism,  for 
its  eclipse  will  be  manifest  to  all  seeing  eyes  and 
it  will  stand  convicted  and  condemned  by  the  minds 
and  consciences  of  its  own  votaries." 


V 

CHRIST  THE   WORD 

NEARLY  five  hundred  years  before  Christ, 
there  lived  In  Ephesus,  a  philosopher,  by 
name  Heracleltus.  He  Is  described  as  having 
been  "  above  all  men,  of  a  lofty  and  arrogant 
spirit."  When  found  one  day  by  his  fellow  citi- 
zens playing  dice  with  some  children  In  the  temple 
of  Artemis  or  Diana,  he  said  to  them,  "  Is  It  not 
better  to  do  this  than  to  meddle  with  public  affairs 
in  your  company?"  Such  remarks  secured  for 
Heracleltus  the  solitude  which  he  desired.  In  his 
own  time,  he  was  called  "  the  obscure,"  and  as  only 
fragments  of  his  writings  remain,  he  is  now  more 
obscure  than  ever.  The  essence  of  his  teaching 
was  that  "  all  things  flow,  nothing  abides,"  and 
Heracleltus  is  coming  to  his  own  again  for  this  is 
also  the  essence  of  the  teaching  of  Monsieur  Berg- 
son,  the  most  famous  of  modern  philosophers. 
M.  Bergson  speaks  of  life  as  a  great  movement, 

72 


Christ  the  Word  73 

carrying  us  along  in  Its  course,  as  an  unceasing 
becoming  which  preserves  the  past  and  creates  the 
future,  he  teaches,  in  short  that  reality  is  a  flow- 
ing. According  to  Heracleitus,  this  flowing  of  all 
tilings  is  unified  and  guided  by  the  Logos.  (Lo- 
gos is  a  Greek  word  which  may  be  translated 
either  "  thought "  or  the  utterance  of  thought, 
namely  "  word.") 

"  This  Logos,"  he  wrote,  "  is  always  existent, 
but  men  fail  to  understand  it  .  .  .  for  although 
all  things  happen  through  this  Logos,  men  seem  as 
if  they  had  no  acquaintance  with  it."  Again, 
"  Although  the  Logos  is  universal  most  men  live  as 
though  they  had  a  private  intelligence  of  their 
own." 

"  Men  are  at  variance  with  the  Logos  which  is 
their  most  constant  companion." 

Again,  "  Wisdom  is  one  thing,  it  is  to  know 
the  thought  by  which  all  things  through  all  are 
guided." 

About  two  hundred  years  after  Heracleitus  the 
Stoic  School  of  Philosophy  was  founded  at  Athens, 
by  Zeno.  The  Stoics  are  mentioned  in  the  seven- 
teenth chapter  of  Acts  and  it  is  worth  noticing 


74       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

that  two  heads  of  this  school  came  from  Tarsus, 
the  city  of  St.  Paul. 

The  head  of  the  Stoic  school  after  Zeno,  Its 
founder,  was  Cleanthes;  he  had  been  a  pugilist  and 
was  once  arrested  by  the  Athenian  police  for  hav- 
ing no  visible  means  of  support. 

In  his  hymn  to  Zeus,  written  about  300  B.  C, 
Cleanthes  sings  of  a  single  everlasting  Logos, 
"  This,"  he  says,  "  all  the  wicked  seek  to  shun,  un- 
happy men,  who  ever  longing  to  obtain  good,  see 
not,  nor  hear  God's  universal  law,  which  wisely 
heeded  would  assure  them  noble  life.  They  haste 
away  however,  heedless  of  good,  one  here,  one 
there,  some  showing  unholy  zeal  in  strife  for  hon- 
our, some  turning  recklessly  toward  gain,  others 
to  looseness  and  the  body's  pleasures." 

Three  hundred  years  after  Cleanthes  and  this 
time  in  Alexandria,  the  city  of  Apollos,  a  Jew 
called  Philo,  wrote  once  more  of  the  Logos  in 
these  terms. 

"  The  Father  who  created  the  universe  has 
given  to  his  .  .  .  most  ancient  Word  a  pre-emi- 
nent gift  to  stand  on  the  confines  of  both  and  sep- 
arate that  which  had  been  created  from  the  crea- 


Christ  the  Word  75 

tor.  And  this  same  Word  is  continually  a  sup- 
pliant to  the  immortal  God  on  behalf  of  the  mor- 
tal race  which  is  exposed  to  affliction  and  misery 
and  is  also  the  ambassador  sent  by  the  ruler  of  all 
to  the  subject  race." 

Within  the  lifetime  of  Philo,  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
lived  in  Palestine,  there  is  no  evidence  however 
that  Philo  ever  even  heard  of  Him. 

So  in  Asiatic  Ephesus,  in  European  Athens,  in 
African  Alexandria,  men  wrote  of  the  Logos  up 
to  the  time  of  Christ.  The  Logos  did  not  mean 
exactly  the  same  to  all  of  them,  to  Heracleitus  it 
meant  the  unifying  principle  of  the  world  process, 
to  the  Stoics,  it  meant  the  universal  reason  which 
makes  nature  orderly,  to  Philo  it  meant  the  medi- 
ating principle  between  God  and  the  world;  the 
idea  of  the  Logos  was  however  common  in  those 
centuries. 

About  the  year  100  A.  D.,  the  author  of  the 
fourth  Gospel  took  the  Logos-idea  into  Christian- 
ity, used  it  as  a  bridge,  someone  has  said,  by  which 
Christianity  might  march  into  the  heart  of  the 
Greek  world,  and,  according  to  tradition,  it  was  in 
Ephesus,  the  city  of  Heracleitus,  that  St.  John 


76       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

wrote  "  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word  or  Logos, 
—  and  the  Logos  became  flesh  and  dwelt  among 
us." 

This  Identification  of  Jesus  Christ  with  the  Lo- 
gos has  been  called  "  The  most  important  step 
that  was  ever  taken  in  the  domain  of  Christian 
doctrine."  By  it  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  declared 
to  be  the  manifestation  in  time  and  space  of  the 
ruling  principle  of  all  things,  to  be  In  fact  the  utter- 
ance of  the  Life  which  is  eternal. 


VI 

THE    VALUE    OF    DEATH 

A  JOURNALIST  tells  of  travelling  in  France 
some  years  ago  and  finding  in  a  village  an 
innkeeper  who  was  a  man  of  one  subject  —  Death. 
He  could  not  understand  how  people  were  able  to 
be  interested  in  anything  else.  When  the  jour- 
nalist returned  a  few  weeks  later,  the  innkeeper 
knew  his  subject  better  —  for  he  was  dead.  This 
man  was  probably  avoided  on  account  of  his  mor- 
bid conversation  and  yet  he  may  have  been  more 
sane  than  his  neighbours  after  all:  for  no  silence 
and  no  sentiment  can  prevent  death.  It  is  the  one 
quite  certain  experience  for  everyone.  Indeed,  it 
may  be  said  that  all  religions  owe  their  existence 
to  these  two  things,  the  certainty  of  death  and  the 
uncertainty  of  everything  else.  Religions  show 
the  attempt  to  find  something  fixed  in  the  midst  of 
change  and  death. 

77 


78       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

Change  and  decay  in  all  around  I  see 
O  Thou  who  changest  not 
Abide  with  me. 


is  an  appeal  from  all  religions.  Buddhism  is 
the  exception  which  proves  this  rule,  for  Buddhism 
teaches  that  the  search  for  something  fixed  is  vain 
and  therefore  total  extinction  should  be  man's 
goal. 

Death  is  the  one  certainty  and  yet  in  spite  of  its 
certainty,  the  thought  of  death  has  very  little  prac- 
tical effect  upon  us.  We  seem  to  have  a  great 
faculty  for  suppressing  disagreeable  ideas. 

One  of  Christ's  most  famous  stories  is  on  this 
forgetfulness  of  death.  It  is  about  a  man  who 
planned  a  prosperous  future  for  himself  and  died 
the  same  night.  In  making  up  his  accounts,  he 
had  left  death  out.  The  famous  series  of  car- 
toons known  as  "  The  Dance  of  Death "  is 
prompted  by  the  same  observation:  that  we  are 
inclined  to  leave  Death  out  of  account.  In  these 
pictures  Death  is  shown  coming  to  all  classes  of 
men  and  women  just  when  he  is  not  expected  and 
not  wanted. 


The  Value  of  Death  79 

But  the  fact  of  death  Is  now  being  forced  upon 
the  world  and  the  questions  grow  more  insistent. 
Do  the  dead  survive?     What  does  death  mean? 

In  speculating  on  the  question  of  survival  and 
happiness  after  death,  some  are  impressed  by  the 
analogy  of  birth,  the  event  most  like  death  of  those 
we  know.  Birth  is  a  death  to  one  kind  of  life, 
but  also  an  entrance  into  another.  Man,  it  is 
argued,  lives  not  once  but  three  times:  the  first 
stage  of  his  life  is  continual  sleep,  the  second  sleep- 
ing and  waking  by  turns;  the  third,  waking  for 
ever.  In  the  first  stage,  he  lives  in  the  dark  alone, 
In  the  second  stage  he  lives,  associated  with,  yet 
separated  from  his  fellowmen,  in  the  third,  his 
life  is  interwoven  with  the  life  of  other  spirits. 
In  the  first  stage,  his  body  develops  Itself  from  its 
germ,  working  out  organs  for  the  second  stage;  in 
the  second  stage,  his  mind  develops  itself  from  its 
germ,  working  out  organs  for  the  third  stage. 
The  act  of  leaving  the  first  stage  for  the  second,  we 
call  birth,  that  of  leaving  the  second  for  the  third, 
we  call  death.  Our  way  from  the  second  to  the 
third,  the  way  of  death,  is  not  darker,  It  Is  argued, 
than  our  way  from  the  first  to  the  second,  the  way 


8o       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

of  birth.  One  way  leads  us  forth  to  see  the  world 
outwardly,  the  other,  perhaps,  to  see  it  inwardly. 
And  just  as  the  infant,  though  alive  before  its 
birth,  is  blind  and  deaf  to  the  light  and  music  of 
this  world,  so,  it  is  argued,  are  we,  though  alive, 
bhnd  and  deaf  to  the  light  and  music  and  freedom 
of  the  world  whose  entrance  is  Death. ^ 

Then  there  are  those  who  say  that  they  have 
penetrated  this  other  world,  that  they  have  here 
and  now  communicated  with  the  dead  and  many 
of  those  who  believe  this  cannot  be  called  feeble- 
minded or  fraudulent. 

Most  men,  perhaps,  have  a  reasonable  certainty 
of  survival  after  death,  but  not  a  scientific  cer- 
tainty, the  evidence,  from  the  necessity  of  the  case, 
awaits  verification,  it  seems  to  them  more  in  ac- 
cordance with  a  rational  scheme  of  things  that  men 
should  survive  death  than  not.  This  is  the  poet's 
argument.  Nature  is  a  rational  system,  an  intel- 
ligible order.     Shall  man,  he  asks, 

"  Man  her  last  work,  who  seemed  so  fair. 
Such  splendid  purpose  in  his  eyes, 

1  "  On  Life  after  Death  "—  Fechner. 


The  Value  of  Death 


Who  roll'd  the  psalm  to  wintry  skies, 
Who  built  him  fanes  of  fruitless  prayer  " 
Shall  man  "  who  suffered  countless  ills, 
Who  battled  for  the  True,  the  Just 
Be  blown  about  the  desert  dust 
Or  sealed  within  the  iron  hills." 

This  argument  reminds  us  that  belief  in  survival 
and  happiness  after  death  is  a  consequence  of 
belief  in  God  and  In  God's  justice.  That  is  the 
way  in  which  the  Jews  arrived  at  the  belief.  It 
grew  strong  In  a  time  of  persecution.  The  suffer- 
ings of  their  martyrs  In  the  time  of  Antiochus 
EpIphanes  (170  B.  C.)  compelled  them  to  believe 
in  future  happiness  for  the  dead,  otherwise 
God  was  not  fair,  there  was  no  justice  in  the  order- 
ing of  the  Universe.  God  must  be  still  their  God 
and  God  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead  but  of  the  living. 
If  God  exists,  they  argued,  those  who  were  the 
instruments  of  his  purpose  could  never  cease  to 
exist. 

And  the  Christian  belief  developed  from  the 
Jewish,  fortified  by  the  Resurrection  of  Christ. 
The  belief  of  the  Christians  in  the  Resurrection 


82       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

of  Christ  taught  them  that  the  Christian  life  is 
God's  purpose  and  therefore  it  triumphs  over 
death.  The  Christian  hfe,  the  life  of  one  united 
to  God's  purpose,  the  life  of  one  who  does  God's 
will,  is  eternal,  that  is  the  Christian  faith.  Other 
ways  of  life  may  survive  death,  it  is  not  certain 
that  they  will  be  everlasting,  the  Christian  way  of 
life  is  the  only  real  way  of  life  and  therefore  the 
only  eternal  way  of  life.  Eternal  life  is,  perhaps, 
a  moral  achievement.  "  In  your  endurance,"  said 
Christ,  "  ye  shall  win  your  souls." 

If  the  important  thing  be  a  certain  way  of  life, 
of  conduct,  which  is  eternal  because  it  is  the  Divine 
way  of  life,  then  death  has  a  meaning  and  a  value. 
It  helps  this  way  of  life.  Death  seems  to  be  es- 
sential for  the  education  of  man's  spirit.  The 
spirit  of  man,  we  know  it  well  these  years,  has 
risen  to  its  greatest  height  in  the  very  presence  of 
natural  death  and  we  have  the  amazing  paradox 
of  Christianity  that  the  highest  revelation  of  God 
is  a  Man  willingly  dying  on  a  cross.  This  idea, 
the  value,  the  necessity  of  Death,  for  the  moral 
life  is  developed  in  a  striking  way  in  an  unfinished 
novel  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 


The  Value  of  Death  83 

"  What  a  blessing  to  mortals,"  a  character  in 
this  novel  says,  "  what  a  kindness  of  Providence 
that  life  is  made  so  uncertain;  that  death  is  thrown 
in  among  the  possibilities  of  our  being;  that  these 
awful  mysteries  are  here  around  us  into  which  we 
must  vanish.  For  without  it,  how  would  it  be  pos- 
sible to  be  heroic,  how  should  we  plod  along  in 
commonplaces  for  ever,  never  risking  anything? 
For  my  part,"  he  goes  on,  "  I  think  that  men  are 
more  favoured  than  the  angels  and  made  capable 
of  greater  heroism,  greater  virtue,  and  a  more 
excellent  spirit  than  they,  because  we  have  such  a 
mystery  of  grief  and  terror  around  us;  whereas 
they,  being  in  the  certainty  of  God's  light,  seeing 
his  goodness  and  his  purposes  more  perfectly,  can- 
not be  so  brave  as  poor  weak  men  have  the  oppor- 
tunity of  being  and  sometimes  make  use  of  it. 
God  gave  the  whole  world  to  man,  and  if  he  is 
left  alone  with  it,  it  will  make  a  clod  of  him  at  last; 
but  to  remedy  that  God  gave  man  a  grave  and  it 
redresses  all  and  makes  an  immortal  spirit  of  him 
in  the  end."  ^ 

In  this  passage  Hawthorne  suggests  that  Death 

2  Quoted    in    Edward    Caird's    "  BalHol    Addresses." 


84       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

may  be  the  great  guardian,  the  great  inspirer  of 
the  moral,  the  heroic,  the  Divine  life. 

Furthermore  it  is  death  that  gives  dignity  to 
even  the  most  ignoble,  to  even  the  most  fashion- 
able life.  Every  life  is  redeemed  from  littleness 
when  we  remember  that  Death  awaits  it.  At  the 
moment  of  death  each  one  of  the  crowd  is  left  at 
last  with  himself  alone,  the  prompters  are  gone, 
he  or  she  must  at  last  be  entirely  real  and  un- 
affected. In  itself  we  can  imagine  death  to  be  a 
purgatory,  a  cleansing,  a  restoration  to  real  val- 
ues, a  startling  reminder  that  a  man's  life  con- 
slsteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  the  things  which 
he  possesseth,  nor  in  his  position  in  society,  but  in 
what  he  is  in  himself  alone.  This  is  the  dignity 
of  Death,  the  dignity  which  death  gives  to  even 
the  meanest  and  most  ignoble  lives.  In  death, 
man,  perhaps  for  the  first  time,  meets  with  him- 
self and  with  the  values  not  of  the  world,  but  of 
God. 

So,  then,  if  moral  values  are  the  only  eternal 
values  and  if  death  be  necessary  in  order  to  hold 
us  to  these  values,   then,  perhaps   Socrates  was 


The  Value  of  Death  85 


right  when  he  suggested  that  death  may  be  the 
greatest  of  all  goods  to  man,  for  Death  is  the 
opportunity  of  greatest  victory  to  man's  uncon- 
querable spirit. 


VII 

THE    RELIGIOUS    OPINIONS    OF   DEAN    SWIFT 

SWIFT  seems  to  have  decided  that  whatever 
else  he  might  be  called,  he  would  never  be 
called  a  saint;  there  is  little  doubt  that  he  delib- 
erately showed  his  w^orst  side  to  the  world;  no  de- 
scription fits  him  so  well  as  Bolingbroke's  "  a  hypo- 
crite reversed."  He  professed  to  be  a  misan- 
thrope. "  Principally,"  he  wrote  to  the  poet 
Pope,  "  I  hate  and  detest  that  animal  called  '  man.' 
The  chief  end  and  purpose  to  myself  in  all  my 
labors  is  to  vex  the  world  rather  than  divert  it." 

He  once  suggested  that  now  and  then  beasts 
may  degenerate  into  men.  And  yet  Addison  sent 
him  "Travels  in  Italy"  inscribed  to  "Jonathan 
Swift,  the  most  agreeable  of  companions,  the  tru- 
est friend,  and  the  greatest  genius  of  his  age,"  and 
when  he  was  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's  he  helped  the 
poor  of  Dublin  with  generous  and  judicious  care. 

He  described  himself  as 

86 


The  Religious  Opinions  of  Dean  Swift      87 

'*  A  clergyman  of  special  note 
For  shunning  those  of  his  coat." 


Yet  he  wrote  often  and  at  length  in  defence  of 
the  clergy  against  unjust  attacks  and  inadequate 
salaries.  The  attacks  he  met  by  reminding  his 
readers  that  the  clergy  were  taken  from  the  laity, 
there  was  no  other  material  available;  it  was  not 
surprising,  considering  their  origin,  that  some  vices 
still  clung  to  them. 

Much  that  Swift  wrote  is  coarse  and  indelicate, 
but  it  is  worth  noticing  that  he  nearly  always 
makes  indecency  and  vice  either  disgusting  or 
ridiculous,  and  no  criticism  of  him  is  fair  which 
neglects  his  chronic  physical  ailment,  his  loneliness, 
and  his  knowledge  that  he  was  going  mad.  "  At 
best,"  he  once  said,  "  I  have  an  ill  head  and  an 
aching  heart." 

It  is  his  morbid  dread  of  being  thought  pious 
or  benevolent,  it  is  his  revolting  realism  which 
makes  Swift's  religion  of  special  interest.  The 
religion  of  one  who  is  always  feeling  that  he  must 
"set  an  example"  is  seldom  interesting  —  even 
as  a  farce.     There  is  no  "  keeping  up   appear- 


88       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

ances  "  in  the  religion  of  Swift.  He  tried,  in 
fact,  to  prevent  any  appearance  at  all.  He  re- 
fused to  let  his  light  shine  before  men. 

It  is  possible,  however,  to  deduce  his  position 
from  some  of  his  writings.  A  few  of  his  sermons 
are  published:  *^  On  the  Trinity, ^^  ^'  On  Mutual 
Subjection/'  ''  On  the  Testimony  of  Conscience/' 
'^  On  Brotherly  Love''  (a  curious  subject  for 
Swift  to  choose)  ;  ^'  On  Doing  Good/'  (A  Sermon 
on  the  Occasion  of  Wood's  Project) ,  '^  On  the  Ex- 
cellency of  Christianity  in  Opposition  to  Heathen 
Philosophy/'  ''  On  False  Witness/'  ''  On  the  Poor 
Man's  Contentment/'  '^  On  the  Causes  of  the 
Wretched  Condition  of  Ireland/'  ^'  On  Sleeping 
in  Church." 

Swift  thought  very  little  of  these  productions 
himself.  "  Here,"  he  said  to  Dr.  Sheridan,  "  are 
a  bundle  of  my  old  sermons.  You  may  have  them 
if  you  please.  They  may  be  of  use  to  you;  they 
have  never  been  of  any  to  me."  According  to 
Mrs.  Pilkington's  memoirs,  he  once  said  to  her 
husband :  "  I  never  preached  but  twice  in  my  life, 
and  then  they  were  not  sermons  but  pamphlets." 
Mrs.  Pilkington  asked  him  what  might  be  the  sub- 


The  Religious  Opinions  of  Dean  Swift     89 

ject  of  them.  He  told  her  they  were  against 
Wood's  half-pence.  Swift  never  formed  the  habit 
of  magnifying  his  ecclesiastical  performances.  O 
si  sic  omnes.  His  Thoughts  on  Religion  have  also 
been  preserved  and,  in  addition,  a  few  letters  and 
essays  on  the  clerical  profession  and  the  Christian 
faith. 

From  these  remains  it  appears  that  Swift  con- 
sidered the  Incarnation  to  be  the  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

"  Since  the  union  of  Divinity  and  Humanity," 
he  wrote,  *'  is  the  great  article  of  our  rehgion,  it  is 
odd  to  see  some  clergymen  in  their  writings  of 
Divinity  wholly  devoid  of  humanity." 

How  this  union  was  effected  and  how  there 
could  be  three  persons  in  one  God  were  questions 
to  which  Swift  offered  no  answer.  He  may  never 
have  read  Bishop  Butler's  sermon  On  the  Igno- 
rance of  Man.  He  would  at  any  rate  have  en- 
tirely approved  of  that  discourse. 

All  of  Swift's  doctrinal  statements  might  be 
said  to  be  on  the  text,  "  We  see  but  In  part  and  we 
know  but  in  part." 

As  he  expressed  it  in  his  Letter  to  a   Young 


90       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

Clergyman:  ''  For  my  part,  having  considered 
the  matter  impartially,  I  can  see  no  great  reason 
which  those  gentlemen  you  call  the  free  thinkers 
can  have  for  their  clamor  against  religious  mys- 
teries, since  it  is  plain  that  they  were  not  invented 
by  the  clergy,  to  whom  they  bring  no  profit  nor 
acquire  any  honor;  for  every  clergyman  is  ready 
cither  to  tell  us  the  utmost  he  knows,  or  to  con- 
fess that  he  does  not  understand  them;  nor  is 
it  strange  that  there  should  be  mysteries  in  divinity 
as  well  as  in  the  commonest  operations  of  nature." 
Along  with  this  emphasis  on  mystery  in  religion 
there  is  that  "  appeal  to  reason  "  which  is  so  char- 
acteristic of  the  eighteenth  century.  "  A  plain, 
convincing  reason,"  he  wrote,  "  may  possibly  oper- 
ate upon  the  mind  both  of  a  learned  and  ignorant 
hearer  as  long  as  they  live,  and  will  edify  a  thou- 
sand times  more  than  the  art  of  wetting  the  hand- 
kerchiefs of  a  whole  congregation,  if  you  were 
sure  to  attain  it."  "  I  do  not  see  how  this  talent 
of  moving  the  passions  can  be  of  any  great  use 
towards  directing  Christian  men  in  the  conduct  of 
their  lives,  at  least  in  these  northern  climates, 
where  I  am  confident  the  strongest  eloquence  of 


The  Religious  Opinions  of  Dean  Swift     91 

that  kind  will  leave  few  impressions  upon  any  of 
our  spirits  deep  enough  to  last  to  the  next  morn- 
ing, or  rather  to  the  next  meal."  He  told  with 
approval  of  a  man  who  made  it  a  rule  in  reading 
to  skip  over  all  sentences  where  he  saw  a  note  of 
admiration  at  the  end. 

Swift  is  not  often  thought  of  as  a  Pastor  pas- 
tormn,  yet  he  had  very  definite  ideas  on  what 
the  "  life  and  doctrine  "  of  the  clergy  should  be. 

In  the  Letter  to  a  Young  Clergyman  already  re- 
ferred to,  he  makes  a  suggestive  remark  on  the 
use  of  heathen  philosophers :  "  Before  you  en- 
ter into  the  common  insufferable  cant  of  taking  all 
occasions  to  disparage  the  heathen  philosophers, 
I  hope  you  will  differ  from  some  of  your  brethren, 
by  first  inquiring  what  those  philosophers  can  say 
for  themselves." 

He  thought  the  clergy  spent  too  much  time  with 
each  other.  "  In  my  humble  opinion,"  he  wrote, 
"  the  clergy's  business  lies  entirely  among  the 
laity;  neither  is  there  perhaps  a  more  effectual 
way  to  forward  the  salvation  of  men's  souls  than 
for  spiritual  persons  to  make  themselves  as  agree- 
able as  they  can  in  the  conversations  of  the  world. 


92       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

for  which  a  learned  education  gives  them  great  ad- 
vantage, if  they  would  please  to  improve  and  ap- 
ply it.  .  .  .  Let  some  reasoners  think  what  they 
please,  it  is  certain  that  men  must  be  brought  to 
esteem  and  love  the  clergy  before  they  can  be 
persuaded  to  be  in  love  with  rehgion." 

With  this  end  in  view,  he  suggested  that  the 
clergy  —  except  the  bishops  —  should  dress  like 
other  men. 

He  must  have  excepted  the  bishops  owing  to 
the  speechless  awe  with  which  he  professed  to  re- 
gard them. 

"  It  is  happy  for  me,"  he  wrote  to  the  Bishop 
of  Clogher,  "  that  I  know  the  persons  of  very  few 
bishops,  and  it  is  my  constant  rule  never  to  look 
into  a  coach,  by  which  I  avoid  the  terror  that  such 
a  sight  would  strike  me  with." 

Among  the  defenders  of  Christianity,  Swift  oc- 
cupies a  peculiar  place.  He  presents  no  apology, 
but  satirizes  "  free  thinkers  "  and  their  methods. 

His  Argument  to  prove  that  the  abolishing  of 
Christianity  in  England  may,  as  things  now  stand 
be  attended  with  some  inconveniences   and  per- 
haps not  produce  those  many  good  effects  proposed 


The  Religious  Opinions  of  Dean  Swift     93 

thereby  is  an  excellent  example  of  restrained  irony. 
He  explains  that  he  is  only  defending  nominal 
Christianity,  real  Christianity  "  having  been  for 
some  time  wholly  laid  aside  by  general  consent  as 
utterly  inconsistent  with  our  present  schemes  of 
wealth  and  power."  Of  church  services  he  asks: 
"  Where  are  there  so  many  conveniences  and  in- 
citements to  sleep?"  Why  then  abolish  them? 
As  to  the  clergy:  "  What  an  advantage  and  fe- 
licity it  is  for  great  wits  to  be  always  provided 
with  objects  of  scorn  and  contempt  in  order  to  ex- 
ercise and  improve  their  talents,"  and  "  If  Chris- 
tianity were  once  abolished  how  could  the  free 
thinkers,  the  strong  reasoners,  and  the  men  of 
profound  learning  be  able  to  find  another  subject 
so  calculated  in  all  points  whereon  to  display  their 
abilities?  What  wonderful  productions  of  wit 
should  we  be  deprived  of  from  those  whose  genius 
by  continual  practice  hath  been  wholly  turned 
upon  raillery  and  invectives  against  religion?" 
"  Nor  do  I  think  it  wholly  groundless,"  he  goes  on, 
"  or  my  fears  wholly  imaginary  that  the  abolishing 
of  Christianity  may  perhaps  bring  the  Church  into 
danger."     "  Furthermore,"  he  argues,  "  the  abo- 


94       Four  Modern  Religious  Movements 

lition  of  Christianity  might  disoblige  the  allies  who 
were  all  Christians  " —  the  argument  was  writ- 
ten during  Marlborough's  campaigns.  Finally  he 
offers,  as  an  amendment,  that  instead  of  the  word 
"  Christianity  "  may  be  put  "  religion  in  general  " 
as  a  thing  to  be  abolished.  "  For  of  what  use  is 
freedom  of  thought  if  it  will  not  produce  freedom 
of  action,  which  is  the  sole  end,  how  remote  soever 
in  appearance  of  all  objections  against  Christian- 

ity." 

Swift  consistently  maintained  this  doctrine,  now 
so  unpopular,  that  in  their  opposition  to  Christian- 
ity, men  propose  no  other  end  than  that  of  fortify- 
ing themselves  and  others  against  the  reproaches 
of  a  vicious  life.  '*  It  being  necessary  for  men  of 
libertine  practices  to  embrace  libertine  principles 
or  else  they  cannot  act  in  consistence  with  any  rea- 
son, or  preserve  any  peace  of  mind.'*  "  Whether 
such  authors  have  this  design,  this  much  is  cer- 
tain," he  acutely  remarks,  "  that  no  other  use  is 
made  of  such  writings."  So  he  insists  on  finding 
out  from  what  quarter  objections  to  religion  come. 
"  If  any  man,"  he  argued,  "  should  write  a  book 
against  the  lawfulness  of  punishing  felony  with 


The  Religious  Opinions  of  Dean  Swift     95 

death,  and  upon  inquiry  the  author  should  be 
found  in  Newgate  under  condemnation  for  robbing 
a  house,  his  arguments  would  not  very  unjustly 
lose  much  of  their  force  from  the  circumstances  he 
lay  under.  So,  when  Milton  wrote  his  "  Book  of 
Divorces,"  it  was  presently  rejected  as  an  occa- 
sional treatise,  because  everybody  knew  he  had  a 
shrew  for  his  wife.  Neither  can  there  be  any  rea- 
son imagined  why  he  might  not,  after  he  was  blind, 
have  writ  another  upon  the  danger  and  incon- 
venience of  eyes.'' 

I  think  it  was  Mr.  Asquith  who  said  that  free- 
thought  was  incurably  sloppy  and  had  better  be 
named  loose-thought.  Swift  held  that  free- 
thought  was  no  thought  at  all.  The  faith  of 
Christians  he  considered,  was  but  as  a  grain  of 
mustard  seed  compared  with  the  faith  of  those 
"  free-thinkers  "  who  accepted  the  absurdities  of 
certain  anti-Christian  books  in  order  to  confirm 
themselves  in  their  perverted  tastes.  His  conclu- 
sion is  that  those  who  are  against  religion  must 
needs  be  fools,  and  therefore  we  read  In  Exodus 
that  of  all  animals  God  refused  the  first  born  of 
an  ass. 


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